The state Medical Examining Board recently disciplined a Fairfield pulmonologist for improperly prescribing opioids and a former UConn Health doctor who had stolen medication from the health center for his private practice.
Dr. Igal Staw, who works at Respiratory Associates in Fairfield, was reprimanded, fined $7,500 and has been permanently restricted from prescribing opioids, under a consent order to which he agreed. He also must hire a supervisor to monitor his drug prescriptions and will be placed on two years of probation if his state registration to prescribe controlled substances is ever reinstated, the order said.
In 2012 and 2013, Staw prescribed opioids to eight patients with chronic pain, including some who may have been abusing the medicine, the order said. He also failed to document the reasons for the prescriptions or justify in the patients’ medical charts why he was increasing the doses.
In the UConn Health case, the board fined Dr. Micha Abeles of West Hartford $5,000 for stealing Depo-Medrol, an anti-inflammatory drug, and Humira, which is used to treat arthritis, from the hospital’s stock for use in his private practice in Meriden.
The thefts occurred in 2015 and 2016. Abeles retired in 2016 from his post as associate director of the UConn Multipurpose Arthritis Center. Abeles had been arrested in June 2016 and charged with one count of second-degree larceny in connection with the thefts, the Hartford Courant reported. In September, Abeles, then 71, was granted a special form of probation for one year, the Courant reported. Abeles had been at UConn for 40 years and replaced the medication he had taken before the arrest, the Courant said. A condition of his probation was that he pay UConn $20,000.
Source: Connecticut Health I-Team