A Kaohsiung-based doctor arrested on suspicion of prescribing barbiturates to underaged patients has been released on bail of NT$200,000, the Ciaotou District (橋頭) Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement on Thursday.
Local police seized medical records and digital records belonging to the doctor, surnamed Yuan (苑), after receiving a report from the Kaohsiung City Government on Monday, it said.
Authorities launched a citywide inquest into the prescription of phenobarbital, a long-acting barbiturate mainly used for the treatment of epilepsy, amid a wider scare in Taiwan over the alleged use of sedatives on children by preschools.
Photo courtesy of the Hsinchu County Government
Prosecutors said that Yuan was released on bail after being questioned, along with a pharmacist employed by his clinic, for allegedly prescribing phenobarbital to children with colic.
Yuan was one of four doctors in Kaohsiung who were fined between NT$110,000 and NT$330,000, and ordered to suspend business for one to six months for improperly prescribing phenobarbitals to patients with colds, acute respiratory infections or colic, including children aged two years or younger.
Yuan denied prescribing phenobarbital, saying he only prescribed dicyclomine for children older than six in accordance with standard clinical practice, and instructed parents on proper care for children younger than six.
Fears over the misuse of phenobarbitals were sparked by parents last month reporting to police that their children had been given unknown drugs by teachers at a private preschool in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋).
The parents told police they had noticed behavioral changes in their children, including extreme irritability and incidents of self-harm, between February and April.
Prosecutors searched the school, as well as the homes of the school principal and seven school employees, and took blood samples from 28 students.
None of the 28 blood samples initially tested met the detection threshold for phenobarbital, with mass spectrometry on four considered inconclusive by some showing no traces of the drug, the New Taipei City Department of Health said.
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