Craig Lohgan and Rebecca Couchman are on trial at Tauranga District Court and collectively face 35 charges related to their operation of EMC Ambulance out of Kawerau. Photo / Hannah Bartlett
Craig Lohgan and Rebecca Couchman are on trial at Tauranga District Court and collectively face 35 charges related to their operation of EMC Ambulance out of Kawerau. Photo / Hannah Bartlett
A part-time locum pharmacist became concerned about the amount of morphine and fentanyl a private ambulance service was ordering after he realised it was more than that ordered by five Tauranga rest homes put together.
The pharmacist, whose concerns prompted a Medsafe audit, gave evidence in a jury trial atthe Tauranga District Court, where the former operators of a private ambulance face charges related to illegally procuring morphine and fentanyl.
Rebecca Couchman and Craig Lohgan, who also use the surname McLaren, collectively face 35 charges related to their operation of EMC Ambulance out of Kawerau.
They deny all charges, which include forgery, obtaining by deception, using an altered document, and administering and possessing a class B controlled drug.
Craig Lohgan and Rebecca Couchman deny all the charges against them. Photo / Hannah Bartlett
Over the past two days, the jury heard the pharmacist and several GPs who held the role of “medical director” for the service became suspicious about the frequency of requests for controlled drugs.
A medical director provides clinical oversight but the responsibilities relevant to the trial are those of writing prescriptions.
The third GP to hold the position gave the most lengthy account of his involvement with the service, as he had been in the role when the Medsafe audit was triggered.
‘I was naive,’ says doctor
The GP said when he was approached about being “medical director”, he clarified with Lohgan, Couchman and another director that he could only offer limited services.
He was aware the private ambulance, which couldn’t respond to 111 calls, often attended sports games and he had experience as a “match day” doctor.
He hoped he could offer training, using his sports medicine expertise.
He said in an early meeting he told them he had limited time, especially as it was a voluntary role with no remuneration and he was working fulltime as a GP in Tauranga.
He was reassured by Lohgan, whom he knew to have the surname McLaren, that he would be handling all the administration and the GP’s role would primarily be for training.
Under cross-examination, he admitted he hadn’t fully explored any legal responsibilities the role might have, nor had he made inquiries about the ambulance service beyond what they provided him with themselves.
He told the court he operated from a “paradigm of trust”, particularly when it came to medical professionals.
He said he had been “naive”.
He was aware that two other Bay of Plenty GPs had previously held the role of “medical director” for EMC, so assumed if anything was amiss, he would have heard about it.
He knew one of his roles would be to write prescriptions for controlled drugs.
This involved EMC staff ringing him to advise what was needed and he would fill out a form to send to a pharmacy.
He also confirmed providing his signature for a form for wholesale pharmacy “Onelink”. However, he denies “ticking” the box that gave them authorisation to order controlled drugs.
He claims when Couchman, Lohgan and another colleague showed him the form at the end of their first meeting, he’d “chuckled” that he wouldn’t be ticking that box, and they laughed in agreement.
The document shows the box had been ticked.
The GP said he was “astounded” when he was made aware of this.
The Crown’s case is this gave Couchman and Lohgan “carte blanche” in their access to controlled drugs, and they are charged with obtaining by deception for allegedly ticking the box themselves.
Couchman’s lawyer Martin Hine, and Lohgan’s lawyer Paul Devoy, suggested during cross-examination that the GP did tick the box.
Eventually, he started to threaten to stop writing prescriptions until he’d been able to do an audit.
However, before he could follow through on the threat, he went on leave and a locum pharmacist called him with concerns soon after he returned.
Pharmacist Mohamad Al Attar gave evidence that he realised the private ambulance was requesting more morphine and fentanyl than that ordered by five Tauranga rest homes put together.
He said the quantity and frequency of scripts “seemed strange”; even if the service had a number of ambulances that needed to be stocked, he wouldn’t have expected them to be going through that amount of morphine and fentanyl in a “short time”.
He also thought it was strange there were virtually no other medications ordered.
The pharmacist told the GP he was going to notify Medsafe. The GP said in his evidence he’d been supportive of that and hoped this process would clear things up.
“There was a part of me that hoped if I got the opportunity to see their documents, all would be in order,” the GP said.
He clarified that while he was aware the service’s administration was “not very good”, he’d had some empathy for that.
He and his colleagues also found the volume of administration to be a challenge and, while it was important, it was a struggle.
When he looked through the audit documentation, he was surprised to see so many reported breakages.
“In my experience, there’s so much caution around these things that it’s usually rare,” he said.
The Crown led him through a number of records where ampoules were reported smashed, faulty, splintering and dumped, sometimes with a batch of 10 or more discarded at a time.
HannahBartlettis a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.
