I think that a pharmacist may have a substance use issue. I've never seen him use drugs on the job but his behaviour and appearance indicate that there may be a problem. He makes a lot of dispensing errors and since I hired him, I've noticed that a number of narcotics have been missing. Do I need to report this to the College even if I'm not sure that he has a substance abuse disorder and even though I'm not sure he is the cause of the missing narcotics?
Section 32.1 to 32.4 of the Health Professions Act states that “If a practitioner or registrant has reason to suspect that a person registered under this Act is suffering from a physical or mental ailment or an excessive personal use of alcohol or drugs that might constitute a danger to the public, the practitioner or registrant must immediately report this to the registrar.” This means that even if you don’t know for sure that a problem exists, but you have reason to be suspicious, you must report your concern to the college. College staff will ask you a number of questions and may suggest strategies for improving your monitoring systems so you can find out more about what is happening to your drug supply. They will also need to gather information about the pharmacist’s behaviour. If it turns out that the pharmacist does have a substance abuse problem, the College’s key interest will be to work with the pharmacist on a recovery program. This can be done through a mutual agreement with the pharmacist; an adversarial discipline process is not usually required.