Pharmacist ordered to take course after refusing to alcohol swab before administering flu shot

A Health Professions Appeal and Review Board has confirmed the decision to order an Ontario pharmacist to take a remedial course after refusing to swab a patient’s shoulder with alcohol before administering a flu shot.On May 29, 2025, the board confirmed the decision from the Inquiries, Complaints and Reports Committee of the Ontario College of Pharmacists to take a Specified Continuing Education or Remediation Program (SCERP) on immunization and professional responsibility.The interaction took place in November 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when pharmacist Maged Ghobrial tried to administer the flu vaccine for a patient. However, according to the patient’s complaint, he had to insist on having his shoulder be cleaned. The pharmacist refused, stating that he did not want to touch him due to COVID-19 concerns, and handed the patient a swab for him to clean himself, the complaint alleges. In his defence, Ghobrial said that his practice is to hold an alcohol swab in one hand and the injection in the other, and that he asks the patient to apply pressure using the swab after injection.However, the college’s committee said in its March 9, 2023 decision that it is standard infection prevention and control practice to clean the skin before injection, and that applying alcohol after the injection can irritate the injection site. The committee said Ghobrial's practice "does not adhere to standard infection prevention and control procedures." Ghobrial also alleged in his appeal that the complaint was related to his ethnic background, but the committee said it found no evidence to support this claim.The patient had also complained that the pharmacist was not wearing a mask. However, the patient changed his story and subsequently said the pharmacist was wearing a mask, but wasn’t wearing gloves. The board backed the committee’s decision to take no action on this issue, noting that gloves aren’t required during immunization as long as proper hand hygiene is being performed. The committee also took issue with Ghobrial stating that it is “not the [patient’s] role to judge” his work, noting that patients “have a right to question a pharmacist’s behaviour and protocols if they believe a risk is posed.”“The committee pointed out that as a member of a regulated health profession, the Applicant has entered into a social contract with society that requires him to act in the best interests of patients,” a part of the decision states. “Further, pharmacists are obliged to protect their patients and society from harm.”Another mitigating factor in the college’s decision was Ghobrial’s significant disciplinary history. In January 2020, he was found by the college’s discipline committee to have excessively marked up the prices of certain drugs. During a separate case in September 2020, the college found him to have made false or unsubstantiated claims for medications and created false records.“The committee expected that the [Ghobrial] will learn from this matter and that he will not be the subject of future complaints,” the decision states.

Pharmacist ordered to take course after refusing to alcohol swab before administering flu shot

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