Moose Jaw pharmacist pleads guilty to accepting kickbacks

Moose Jaw pharmacist Niklas Voelk has been ordered to pay a penalty of $19,000 after he pleaded guilty to professional misconduct and accepting more than $700,000 in kickbacks from a pharmaceutical company.

Voelk was managing the city’s Co-op pharmacy when he began receiving prepaid Visa cards, gift cards and American Express certificates from the company Pharmascience in 2005; it continued until 2013.

His guilty plea and the statement of facts of his case are contained in a disciplinary report filed by the Saskatchewan College of Pharmacy Professionals.

The college handed out its decision on Dec. 4 last year.

The $19,000 penalty includes a $5,000 fine levied against Voelk and another $14,000 to reimburse the college for its investigation into the case.

The complaint against Voelk was filed by Moose Jaw Co-op filed in November 2015.

He has until Dec. 1 to pay the full amount. If he doesn’t, his licence will be suspended until he does.

The disciplinary report shows that between 2005 and 2013 Voelk received at least $15,901.20 worth of kickbacks; the largest sum was $164,439.08 in 2012.

He didn’t report any of it until September 2015, when he told Moose Jaw Co-op.

Moose Jaw Co-op fired Voelk the following month.

Along with the $19,000 penalty, Voelk is ordered to disclose the disciplinary decision to all future employers over the next three years.

The college’s registrar, Jeana Wendel, said the case “isn’t something we’ve experienced.”

Lawyers working on the case couldn’t find any comparable ones in Saskatchewan, she said, noting that they had to look out of province to find similar ones to reference.

Wendel also said that the $5,000 fine was the maximum allowable amount that the college could levy against a member at the time of Voelk’s actions.

The current maximum allowable amount is $100,000, which passed as amended legislation to the Pharmacy Amendment Act on May 14, 2015.

Wendel said Voelk’s case wasn’t necessarily an instigator for the change to the legislation. She said $5,000 likely isn’t a good deterrent.