A pharmacist who bulk-ordered medicines to send back to his struggling home community in Sierra Leone has been handed a one-year suspension by the GPhC.

Sylvester Emmanuel Vinkabb Jr went before the GPhC’s fitness to practise committee earlier this month for a hearing at which it was established he had ordered large quantities of medicines including Xanax, codeine linctus and Phenergan while working as a lead pharmacist at a branch of Evans Pharmacy in Long Eaton.

The orders, which were placed between May 2022 and February 2023 at the request of a doctor in Freetown, Sierra Leone, were made without his employer’s knowledge and without Mr Vinkabb holding a wholesaler’s licence or a Home Office-issue controlled drugs licence.

Mr Vinkabb explained that he had initially he had set up an ‘Africa box’ in the pharmacy with the knowledge of colleagues in which he placed medicines like ibuprofen and paracetamol that had been placed in the patient returns bin. The medicines were then shipped to Sierra Leone, "hidden in a barrel with clothes and shoes".

“It was always upsetting to me when I went back to Sierra Leone and saw how difficult it was for the community hospital, the staff and the patients with such acute shortages of medicines that are commonly available, and regularly thrown away, in the UK,” he told the FtP committee in his witness statement. He would also purchase medical equipment from Amazon to ship to the country.

He told the FtP committee that when a doctor in Sierra Leone learned he was sending medicines, the doctor began asking Mr Vinkabb to purchase specific medicines, of which he claimed controlled drugs did not form the principal part: “The majority of medicines that I supplied were blood pressure or diabetes medicines.”

In an interview with his employers before being dismissed, he stressed that he did not purchase the drugs to make a profit or to distribute them within the UK: “I’m not giving them in the UK, only sending back home. I don’t know quantity, all purchased to send back home. I also send a lot of OTC, dressings, and vitamins, not just these drugs. …I speak with a doctor back home and he tells me what drugs are needed, they can’t get pain meds or treat anxiety, the drugs aren’t available.”

He bought the medicines at cost price including VAT and paid for them out of his own pocket, he said. They were sent to his mother, who along with other relatives sorted through them and helped to distribute them.

Letters from a doctor in Sierra Leone as well as other officials appeared to corroborate Mr Vinkabb’s account. The FtP committee said it had to treat this as merely hearsay evidence but nonetheless “put weight on it”.

The FtP committee found that he had behaved dishonestly and breached several professional standards in his conduct, which involved removing “high risk” medicines from the pharmacy without the authority to do so, but noted the “unique mitigating circumstances” of the case.

Mr Vinkabb said he recognised the seriousness of his actions, and the FtP committee found his remorse was “sincere and genuine” and that he was unlikely to repeat the behaviour if his licence were restored. It decided to impose a 12-month suspension on his licence to practice.