An Upper Tantallon doctor accused of trafficking 50,000 opioid pills was repeatedly flagged for questionable practices beginning in 2010, but only came under police investigation when the patient at the centre of her alleged scheme was admitted to the hospital on an unrelated matter.

This is according to court documents obtained by CBC News that say Nova Scotia's prescription monitoring program warned or queried Dr. Sarah Jones at least three times after concerns were raised about her behaviour, but apparently never called police.

Jones, 35, has been charged with theft and fraud over $5,000, and trafficking Oxyneo and oxycodone pills between January 2014 and August 2015.

Bridgewater Police allege she obtained those narcotics by writing and filling false prescriptions for a patient, Merel Chase, who had no idea his doctor was allegedly using his name during that time.

The alleged scheme is outlined in a 25-page document to support an application to search Jones's Hammonds Plains home. None of the allegations in the documents have been proven in court.

In August 2015, Chase, a Lunenburg County senior, was admitted to South Shore Regional Hospital for a urinary tract infection. Jones called the hospital pharmacist to say Chase should not be given any narcotics because she had weaned him off of them, according to search warrant documents.

1,000 pills

A hospital pharmacist followed up by calling Chase's drug store at the Bridgewater Superstore to check his medication history. It was learned Chase had been prescribed more than 1,000 Oxycontin pills even while he lay in a hospital bed, say the documents.

Dr. Sarah Jones graduated from medical school in Dalhousie's class of 2007. (Calnen Photography/Dalhousie University)

Hospital staff found the amounts and dosages to be "profoundly suspicious" and they called the pharmacy back.

Hospital staff were told Jones had been picking up all of Chase's medications, including narcotics, from the pharmacy, which is an hour's drive from her medical clinic. And they were told she'd been making trips regularly for more than two years, according to documents.

At that point, hospital staff ordered a urine test for Chase. It came back showing no trace of opioids. Nor did he appear to be in narcotic withdrawal.

The head pharmacist at the hospital, Roland Genge, took the concerns to the registrar at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia.

Dr. Gus Grant reviewed Chase's prescription history. He then called police, described the history as "unexplainable," and told an officer Jones had been "filling" prescriptions at three different pharmacies over the last two months.

Jones's medical licence was suspended and the college launched an investigation.

Jones on monitoring program radar

Police went to work and requested the Chase file from the province's prescription monitoring program (PMP), which is designed to track the prescribing of highly addictive drugs, and mandated to promote the reduction of drug abuse.

Officers learned that between January 2015 and August 2015, Chase had been prescribed more than 10,000 Oxyneo and oxycodone pills.

Furthermore, in 2014 a Superstore pharmacist had become increasingly wary about Jones's frequent practice of picking up varying doses of Oxyneo for Chase. The pharmacist blew the whistle in a letter to PMP.

Turns out, Jones's unusual practice of picking up Chase's narcotics and had already been on the monitoring program's radar for four years. She told the college she had started picking up his prescriptions in July 2010.

According to information obtained during the college's investigation, Dr. Peter MacDougall, the medical consultant with the program, advised Jones that "this practice needed to stop," the documents say.

Multiple incidents

Jones complied in October 2010, but resumed those long drives to deliver drugs in January 2012, saying Chase had mobility issues. She explained that she would deliver his narcotics, pick up any leftover painkillers, and drop them off in the medicine disposal box at the clinic.

In April 2012, Jones once again drew the attention of the program — this time for the high dosages of opioids prescribed to Chase. She offered an explanation letter and the prescription monitoring program "appeared satisfied with her response," say the search warrant documents.

Two years later, the issue of powerful dosages prescribed to Chase emerged again. In January 2014, the monitoring program questioned Jones about her prescribing practice. She replied — one year later, and the program accepted her answer again, documents say.

A spokesperson with Medavie Blue Cross, which has the contract to operate the prescription monitoring program, told CBC News in an email that they could not comment because the case is before the courts.

'Alarm bells' and bizarre behaviour

When Jones broke the news to Crossroads Family Practice, where she worked, that her medical licence had been suspended in August 2015, her bosses immediately suspected it involved Chase, according to a statement provided to police and quoted in documents.

Jones's employers soon learned about the quantity of pills prescribed to him, which left clinic co-owner Dr. Holly Zwicker "gobsmacked" because it was a "fatal" amount. And they discovered Jones was delivering him drugs "as frequently as every four days," despite the 100-kilometre drive.

Before long, Jones's medical licence was reinstated and she was back at work, although she was barred from prescribing opioids. She was required to provide a urine sample and asked a clinic nurse to send the sample to a lab.

The nurse reportedly told Zwicker that Jones's "sample was cold" and not 37 C, the temperature it should be if it had just come out of someone's body, say the documents. "Alarm bells" were raised and the sample was thrown out.

Text messages

From that point, Jones started behaving oddly, say the documents. In October, Jones, who is asthmatic, started to complain that she was sick. Text messages started appearing saying Jones was in the hospital and "in very bad shape."

Zwicker alleges Jones was texting but pretending the messages were from a friend, say the documents. Staff went to "multiple hospitals in the metro area to see if Jones was OK but she had never been admitted at all," documents say.



Another clinic co-owner, Dr. Shauna Herman, concluded that Jones "lied about having asthma attacks. She had faked being admitted to hospital," and was fired from Crossroads.

Herman suspected that Jones was taking the opioids herself, although there was no proof of this, nor was she showing any signs of being an addict, say documents. But Herman told officers that taking opioids is a common treatment for severe cases of asthma to help with breathing and shortness of breath.

Chase also suspicious

Documents say police also talked to Chase in November 2015 and learned he had not taken narcotics for over a year. The deliveries by his physician of five years were helpful as he had no transportation.

Chase said Jones told him to never go to the Superstore, not for prescriptions or even groceries, because he had been banned, say the documents. Chase decided to check that out and learned that he was, in fact, welcome at the store.

When police officers searched Jones's Hammonds Plains home on Feb. 4, they seized an iPhone, iPads and a laptop, along with pharmacy receipts, prescription pads, a letter from Service Canada and Chase's medical documents, say the documents.

Prescription drugs were also seized, but police did not find any Oxyneo or oxycodone pills.