NEW: RI Pharmacist Leo Blais Suspended For Dangerous & Lax Practices
Monday, March 25, 2013
Rhode Island pharmacist Leo Blais, RPH, has been suspended by the RI Department of Health (HEALTH) for 2 years for dangerous and lax practices, including improper labeling and storage of medications that led to including morphine in omeprazole prescriptions for an infant and a toddler. Blais is also a former RI State Senator.
Began with a flood
Blais' recent troubles began after the historic flooding that affected all of Rhode Island in the spring of 2010. According to documentation from HEALTH, on April 10 of that year, Blais "removed drugs, including controlled substances, to an unauthorized, unlicensed site for compounding and dispensing" in violation of RI General Laws governing pharmacy practice.
During that period, Blais compounded drugs "in an environment not consistent with … standards," according to HEALTH.
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Further, HEALTH cites an error when Blais was pharmacist in charge (PIC) at Apothecare in March 2012, "when a dispensing error was made for prescriptions dispensed from the same batch of Omeprazole 2mg/mL suspension to an eleven month old infant and a two year old child." According to HEALTH, the compounded prescriptions in question were labeled as "Omeprazole 2mg/mL," which upon testing confirmed that it also contained morphine, "a potent narcotic pain-killer and schedule II controlled substance." Omeprazole is a proton pump inhibitor used in the treatment of dyspepsia, peptic ulcer disease, GORD/GERD, and laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR). Blais was also the verifying pharmacist regarding both these prescriptions.
Blais has also been named as responsible for more than 100 articles of an in drug stock at Apothecare which did not have expiration dates on the label or were beyond the labeled expiration date.
An inspection of the compounding areas at Apothecare revealed the space to be "disorganized an disheveled, making it difficult for a pharmacist to safely and effectively prepare prescriptions."
Blais' license has been suspended as of March 23, 2012, for two years.
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