A Kitchener drug addiction treatment centre housed an unlicensed pharmacy in which methadone was prepare, three people who worked at the clinic claim.
One of those people, registered practical nurse Melissa Noble, says questions were first raised in her mind in March, when she received a call from the Ontario College of Pharmacists, asking for the name of the pharmacy at ACT Kitchener, the clinic where she was working.
She told the college that the clinic used New Day Pharmacy, located at the same site on Queen Street.
Noble says further conversations led her to believe that New Day wasn’t a legitimate pharmacy – which she says surprised her, given she claims she often saw a pharmacist preparing methadone at the pharmacy.
“He was preparing the doses,” she said in an interview.
“He would put them in a basket with the sheet, and I would take them, check them, make sure the name was right (and) the dose was right.”
Wendy Coyne, a former manager at the ACT Clinic, says she also saw methadone being made at the pharmacy.
“It was just kind of a fly-by-night pharmacy,” she said.
“When he was there, we were like a full, running pharmacy during the day.”
A third woman, a nurse who did not want to be identified, also said that she saw a pharmacy run out of the ACT clinic.
All three women say they saw a pharmacist preparing methadone on the premises, and labelling them as if they had been made at a registered pharmacy three hours away.
Noble says she confronted the pharmacist with her concerns.
“At that time, his answer was that he was working toward getting the pharmacy accredited, and that they would do it the right way from that point on,” she said.
Noble and Coyne say the pharmacy was shut down after that, and all signs relating to New Day were taken down.
“They just want to deny everything,” Coyne said.
“They’re pretending like it never happened.”
The owner of the clinic claims there was never a pharmacy on the premises.
“I think the people filing this complaint are trying to get you confused,” said Dr. Clement Sun.
“We are not running a pharmacy.”
Sun also says that the pharmacist – Samuel Iskander – was properly delivering methadone to the clinic.
Iskander declined an interview with CTV News for this story, but did offer his thoughts in an email.
“I can confirm that I transferred custody of methadone from a licensed pharmacy to physicians and their delegates at the ACT Clinic in Kitchener, which is a legal practice,” he said.
While ACT is allowed to distribute methadone, that methadone must be provided by a pharmacy that is authorized to prepare it.
A spokesperson for the Ontario College of Pharmacists says it’s currently investigating Iskandar’s practice, following a concern from a member of the public.
Noble and the other nurse are currently on stress leave from their duties at ACT.
