A general practitioner has been suspended for three months for failing to exercise care in prescribing Subutex to patients. Dr Tay Ser Wee who practices at the Flame Tree Medical Centre at Upper Thomson Road was also fined $2,500 and censured.
A Singapore Medical Council disciplinary inquiry found that Dr Tay’s management of the patients was inappropriate and he did not document sufficient details of the patients’ diagnosis.
He had also failed to register the patients and their prescriptions in the Central Addiction Registry of Drugs or CARDS.
CARDS is an on-line registry which allows the central monitoring of all Subutex prescriptions to patients so as to prevent a patient going from doctor to doctor for multiple prescriptions of the drug.
Subutex was formerly used to treat heroin addicts.
It was declared illegal in late 2006 after it was found that former heroin addicts became hooked on it instead.
The proceedings arose out of a complaint in September 2006 by the Ministry of Health against Dr Tay.
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