ORONO, Maine — An Orono pharmacist, recently disciplined by the state for a fourth time for unprofessional conduct, faced sanctions in 2015 after wrongly dispensing a potent antipsychotic drug to a woman from Old Town who was prescribed an anti-inflammatory medication.
The woman, Leah Bilyk, was hospitalized in June 2015 with seizure-like symptoms after taking the wrong medication.
The error resulted in pharmacist Ali Aghamoosa, who admitted to misfilling Bilyk’s prescription, receiving a $1,000 fine and six hours of continuing education. On March 3, he signed another consent agreement to settle another complaint filed in 2015. Then, a week later, he settled three additional complaints that resulted in new sanctions against him by the Maine Board of Pharmacy for fraudulent insurance billing, allowing unlicensed staff to dispense medications and failure to take other mandated training.
The recent violations require Aghamoosa to be supervised when dispensing medication for the next year, starting March 28, and for him to pay a fine of $8,000. During his probation, he cannot be listed as the primary pharmacist at his business, Orono Pharmacy.
Bilyk is criticizing the Maine Board of Pharmacy for giving Aghamoosa a “slap on the wrist,” not only in her case but last week as well.
“I thought I was going to die,” she said. “[He] sent a person to the hospital.”
Findings of misconduct
Aghamoosa signed a nine-page Maine Board of Pharmacy consent agreement March 11 that lists the history of grievances filed against him — including Bilyk’s — and the board’s findings of misconduct in the three most recent complaints in 2015. The consent agreement was signed early on the day a planned 30-day suspension of his license was to start. It nullified the suspension.
Aghamoosa admitted in the consent agreement that he charged a customer’s insurance company for three prescriptions that were not filled in 2015, that he allowed a pharmacist from Jordan to practice in his pharmacy without a valid license, and that he lied on his annual license application by saying he had taken the required two hours of continuing education.
The agreement lists three other settled complaints — Bilyk’s, which she filed with the Board of Pharmacy in June and was settled by a September consent agreement, another 2015 complaint that resulted in a $3,000 fine and 10 hours of additional continuing education, and a 2006 complaint that was settled by consent agreement in 2007 with a $100 fine and two hours of education.
Six complaints have been filed against Aghamoosa since 2006 resulting in disciplinary actions.
Aghamoosa is among 2,055 licensed pharmacists in Maine. Over the last three years a total of 83 complaints have been filed against 65 pharmacists that have resulted in disciplinary actions, according to Doug Dunbar, a spokesman for the Maine Department of Professional and Financial Regulation, which oversees the Maine Board of Pharmacy.
Four pharmacists had their licenses revoked and eight others had their licenses suspended between 2013 and 2015, Dunbar said.
While last week’s consent agreement settles all the complaints against the Orono pharmacist, “the board may however consider the conduct described above as evidence of a pattern of misconduct in the event that other allegations are brought against Mr. Aghamoosa,” it states.
Dunbar said the department oversees nearly 40 licensing boards and said it would be inappropriate to comment on any action they have taken.
“It’s my sense, for what it’s worth, that reactions to decisions by boards vary,” he said. “Sometimes licensees and others believe the discipline is too punitive. Other times, parties involved in complaints have a different view.”
‘Trying to breathe’
Bilyk said she was at work when she started to feel tired after taking the wrong medication given to her by Aghamoosa. Eventually, she left work and went to her mother’s home, where she started to have seizure-like symptoms.
“I lost control of my body,” the 29-year-old social worker said. “My head started to twist, and I lost the ability to walk.”
Bilyk was taken by ambulance to the emergency room of St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor, where doctors spent hours trying to figure out what was happening.
“It was so painful,” Bilyk said, describing her symptoms. “All I could do for those hours was lie in the hospital bed and focus on trying to breathe and fighting to realign myself.”
While at the hospital, she mentioned to medical staff that the drug she took earlier for inflammation in the day was yellow. Her normal anti-inflammatory medication is white. She was instructed to discontinue the medication. She went home from the hospital that night.
The next day, Bilyk called Aghamoosa to see if he gave her the wrong medication and, at first, was assured by him that had not happened, she said. However, a short time later he called her and asked her to bring him the pills “right away.”
“I said, ‘I cannot drive.’ And I totally regret doing this, but he asked for my address and I gave it to him,” Bilyk said. “He came right over.”
Aghamoosa admitted giving Bilyk the wrong medication, according to his written response to Bilyk’s complaint, which she provided to the Bangor Daily News. Aghamoosa said Wednesday he completed the six hours of education ordered by the board in response to Bilyk’s complaint but then declined to answer any additional questions.
“I refilled her prescription in error with Haloperidol 10 mg that is located next to Hydroxychloroquine on the shelf,” Aghamoosa wrote in his June 19 response. “Both of these products are stocked in bottles that are very similar in shape and color made by ZyGenerics. I mistakenly picked up the Haloperidol 10 mg and did not follow my good pharmacy practice to scan the product as I always do and proceeded with counting and filling her prescription.”
Haloperidol is a synthetic antipsychotic drug used chiefly in the treatment of psychotic conditions, and hydroxychloroquine, which is sold under the trade name Plaquenil, is used to reduce inflammation, among other things.
Aghamoosa also apologized for his error.
“I feel so bad that I have misfilled Ms. Bilyk’s prescription,” Aghamoosa stated in the document. “I feel like I have caused her trouble due to this misfill. I have always enjoyed serving her and her family since I have established Orono Pharmacy. I consider them my friends and neighbors.”
Bilyk said while she has no lasting physical injury from the misfill, the situation was so disturbing that she has had nightmares, she had to go to counseling and take time off work, and she still fears running into Aghamoosa or his family and so she avoids downtown Orono.
“It gives me anxiety just to go down that street,” she said.