|
SLEEPING tablets are addictive and meant to be taken only over short periods. But a doctor here prescribed them to his patients for up to six years at a stretch.
For doing so, Bukit Batok general practitioner Justin Quek Pong Thia has been suspended for a year and fined $8,000.
The Singapore Medical Council (SMC) said yesterday that it had found him guilty of prescribing benzodiazepines regularly to 17 patients without exercising due care.
Benzodiazepines are a class of drugs normally used to treat conditions such as insomnia and anxiety. It is sometimes used to wean addicts off other drugs.
Popular forms of benzodiazepines include Dormicum, Erimin and Nitrazepam, which drug addicts sometimes mix with other substances to get high.
A complaint was filed by the Ministry of Health (MOH) in 2005, and the case was referred to the SMC. Over two hearings, the council found Dr Quek, who had a previously clean 11-year record, guilty of 17 charges.
According to MOH guidelines, patients should take such drugs for not more than two weeks.
The SMC said DrQuek had not planned to reduce the prescribed dosage, and sometimes dispensed the drugs to patients continuously for months or years.
General practitioners told The Straits Times that addiction to benzodiazepines can result in memory lapses and impaired concentration.
Doctors being lax in prescribing sleeping medication are an ongoing problem - they made up nearly 60 per cent of the 32 doctors suspended between 2004 and June last year. Last year, six doctors were rapped by the SMC on similar charges.
Two GPs told The Straits Times they had encountered colleagues overprescribing sleeping pills for easy profits.
Said Dr Erwin Kay of KCS Medical Centre in Bedok: 'You can get a high profit margin from such medication. With doctors facing high operational costs, some may feel the economic pressure.'
He estimated the cost of a Dormicum tablet at a few cents, but doctors can sell them for anything between $1 and $5 each.
Dr Quek's Wesley Family Clinic and Surgery in Bukit Batok East Avenue 4 was closed yesterday when The Straits Times visited it.
A sign outside said the doctor was on 'self-study and upgrading leave' and would resume practice in May next year.
When contacted for his side of the story, the 41-year-old doctor would say only that it was 'complicated'.
twong@sph.com.sg
| 
