A doctor was so desperate to feed her oxycodone addiction she kept hacking back into a hospital prescribing system to write fake scripts – even after she was caught.
The doctor had her medical licence suspended following two years of forged prescriptions, but that did not stop her logging into the system from home to get her fix.
When her login details were taken away, she used someone else’s, stockpiling oxycodone until she was arrested.
This week she was sentenced in the Manukau District Court for a representative charge of dishonestly accessing a computer system.
According to an agreed summary of facts, she used the names of 55 different patients to forge a total of 662 prescriptions.
In July, she made a bid to be discharged without conviction and for permanent name suppression, which Judge Sanjay Patel denied.
But the court heard on Tuesday that the woman is appealing both those decisions and so her identity will remain secret for now.
The doctor was working at a hospital in Auckland.
The summary of facts said she used the hospital’s computer system to prescribe herself drugs, mainly the strong, synthetic opioid oxycodone.
She made the fake scripts using the names and details of real patients.
On her personal computer she would log in to the system, email the prescriptions to herself, print them out then take them to be filled in various pharmacies around Auckland.
Two years into this behaviour, she had her medical licence suspended, which meant she was no longer allowed to issue prescriptions.
She then accessed the computer system from her laptop, continuing to self-prescribe for two months, after which her login details were revoked.
This was also when Health NZ Te Whatu Ora reported her activity to the police.
It did not stop her, however, and she printed six more prescriptions using another doctor’s login until she was arrested a week later.
The agreed facts said she used the names of 55 different patients to forge a total of 662 prescriptions.
‘It softened the emotional pain’
In an affidavit before the court, the doctor said she was first prescribed oxycodone after a surgery and quickly became addicted.
“It softened the emotional pain that I had been carrying for years,” she said.
She had a traumatic childhood, she reported, marked by her parents’ divorce and witnessing family violence and mental health issues at a young age.
She went to rehab for her addiction and was clean for a time until a quick succession of tragic life events triggered her to self-prescribe the substance.
“Taking opioids made me feel normal again,” she said. “They made me feel as though I could function, cope and survive what life was continuing to throw at me.”
Following her arrest, the doctor was in residential treatment but was discharged after it was discovered she was self-administering a GLP-1 weight loss drug.
In July, the doctor’s lawyer Bridget Lawler told the court her client had been legitimately prescribed the drug under the condition that she attend an eating disorder support group at the same time.
The medication was taken off her chart because she did not attend the group, and she was caught taking it secretly and discharged from rehab, Lawler said.
She also argued that the doctor had forged prescriptions in the names of family friends or people she knew, not her own patients.
Lawler accepted that the self-prescribing was prolonged, with multiple breaches of trust, while her client was in the trusted position of a doctor.
Judge Patel gave the doctor a 25 percent sentence reduction for her early guilty plea, and 30 percent for the connection between her addiction and dishonesty. He also granted her a 10 percent reduction for her rehabilitative efforts and 5 percent for her remorse.
Loss of career, reputation and relationships
In a Corrections report before the court, she told the writer her dishonesty had cost her her career, reputation and relationships.
She said she understood how, in using their names, she had damaged her family and friends’ ability to get medical care without prejudice.
She also acknowledged her actions reflected badly on her profession and the “trust and expectations” of doctors as a whole.
The doctor, who was sitting in the back of the court with her family for both hearings, stood up as the judge sentenced her to 18 months’ intensive supervision.
The conditions of that sentence were that she engage in any counselling or treatment recommended by her probation officer and not to consume alcohol or drugs.
She must also get written permission from a probation officer to start any new employment.
In July, Lawler said she understood the Medical Council would consider its own disciplinary measures after the criminal case was closed.
She indicated her client may wish to revisit practicing medicine in the future.
* This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.
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