Pharmacist punished for ignoring patient's needs... Noesen ordered to pay $20,000 and take class on ethics
By Patricia Simms, Wisconsin State Journal
Monday, April 18, 2005 2:25 PM CDT
MADISON -- The state Pharmacy Board on Wednesday reprimanded a 31-year-old pharmacist who blocked a young woman's attempt to refill her birth-control prescription at a Menomonie pharmacy because of his religious beliefs.
But the board said Neil Noesen, now of Minnesota, was being punished for ignoring the patient's health needs, not for following his beliefs.
''(Noesen) is not being sanctioned for exercising his conscience,'' the board said. ''Rather, he is being held accountable, as would any other registered pharmacist, for engaging in a practice that departed from the standards of care that govern his profession.''
The board also ordered him to pay $20,000 in costs and attend classes on ethics.
Noesen refused to fill the prescription of a UW-Stout student in 2002 and refused to transfer the prescription to another pharmacy.
The 2002 incident sparked the introduction of a ''conscience protection'' bill that was passed by the Wisconsin Legislature last session but was vetoed by Governor Jim Doyle. Noesen's stand has also become somewhat of a cause for opponents of abortion rights.
Last month, Rep. Jean Hundertmark, R-Clintonville, introduced a new version of the bill that would protect healthcare workers from being discriminated against or sued because they follow their consciences and refuse to participate in procedures that are a ''planned, calculated destruction of human life.'' But Hundertmark says her bill does not address contraceptives.
Noesen's case reflects what some describe as a national trend among pharmacists to refuse to participate in what they consider immoral activities.
"This is a very big issue that's just beginning to surface,'' Steven H. Aden of the Christian Legal Society's Center for Law and Religious Freedom in Annandale, Va., told a Washington Post reporter last month. ''More and more pharmacists are becoming aware of their right to conscientiously refuse to pass objectionable medications across the counter. We are on the very front edge of a wave that's going to break not too far down the line."
Noesen argued that his refusal did not threaten the woman's health. But "every pregnancy has the potential for morbidity or mortality," the board said.
Meanwhile, Noesen was working as a pharmacy intern in Minnesota, a state in which he does not hold a pharmacist's license, said Christopher Klein, executive assistant of the Wisconsin Department of Regulation and Licensing.
On Jan. 11, police dragged Noesen from the company in Minnetonka where he was working and arrested him on charges of trespassing and disorderly conduct. The police complaint said Noesen refused to leave the building after being told he'd been fired for ''refusing to fill birth-control prescriptions.''
Klein said Noesen now holds a limited license in Wisconsin but has to inform his employer in writing of his stance and what his plan will be to make sure the patient has access to medicines if Noesen refuses to fill a prescription. |
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