THE former director of pharmacy at a Hunter public hospital has been disqualified for two years for swiping drugs for herself and members of her family.
Susan Murtagh, who was registered as a pharmacist in NSW in 1985, went on to work as the director of pharmacy at a public Hunter hospital from 1987 until her resignation in 2021.
Members of staff raised concerns in July 2020 saying she was removing medication from the pharmacy department for personal use.
The Hunter New England Local Health District investigated the allegations over a period of six months including several interviews with Ms Murtagh.
The list of drugs inappropriately dispensed by Ms Murtagh include dulaglutide, a medication prescribed for Type 2 diabetes; the antihistamine cetirizine; an anti-rejection drug commonly used for organ transplant patients; and pain medication (aspirin).
A written judgement handed down in the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal reveals that some of the medications Ms Murtagh removed from the hospital pharmacy were drugs prescribed for family members such as Nasonex prescribed by the family GP in 2011 and 2012; salbutamol (Ventolin), for a family member with Asthma; and a schedule 4 insomnia medication a couple of weeks after her family GP prescribed it.
Other medications Ms Murtagh obtained included calcitriol, a medication used to treat low calcium levels caused by kidney disease; antibiotics, and tablets prescribed for people suffering gout or arthritis.
There were a total of 20 dates on which Ms Murtagh made entries into the hospital's computer system to dispense medications to herself or members of her family between March 2004 and February 2020.
In some instances Ms Murtagh made entries purporting to distribute the drugs to hospital wards, when there were no patients on those wards prescribed those medications on the relevant dates.
On another occasion she pretended the medications were for a patient on discharge, but the patient had already collected those medications and left the hospital.
Another instance involved asking a pharmacy technician to order in two boxes of 100 tablets of tacrolimus, without indicating who they were for. The medication was received on a Friday afternoon and were missing the following Monday.
That was significant because a family member underwent a live donor renal transplant and was prescribed tacrolimus after that procedure, the tribunal said
Ms Murtagh initially defended the allegations but did not attend the NCAT hearing.
She made a statement on April 18, 2024, in which she said she had been a pharmacist for 40 years but had suffered mental health issues since COVID.
The tribunal said that none of the material Ms Murtagh provided gave any sense of remorse or insight into her conduct.
Her conduct was deliberate and involved not only herself but family members and a hospital patient.
"It shows a complete lack of moral compass and did not meet the standards of honesty that are expected of pharmacists," the tribunal found.
"Ms Murtagh put her own interests ahead of her professional obligations to act with integrity. We find that her conduct was improper and unethical. When matters were put to Ms Murtagh by the Council in the course of their investigations, she misled them."
Ms Murtagh later worked in a community pharmacy for two years before surrendering her registration in February, 2024.
While the Health Care Complaints Commission sought orders preventing Ms Murtagh from re-registering as a pharmacist for three years, the Tribunal ordered two years.
