HAMTRAMCK — On Wednesday, Doctor Basil Qandil of Hamtramck was arrested and charged for writing more prescriptions of controlled substances than any other doctor in the state. Only the University of Michigan had written more prescriptions, according to reports.

The Qandil Family Medical  & Urgent Care Center, where the doctor had been practicing is located at 9222 Jos. Campau.  The Drug Enforcement Administration had raided the practice during a drug crackdown. 

Dr. Qandil.

Dr. Qandil had allegedly written about 140 prescriptions a day, according to court records. Authorities had began suspected him after complaints were filed at the Hamtramck Police Department regarding suspicions towards how Dr. Qandil had treated a patient back in June. When officers responded to the complaint by paying a visiting to his practice, they had found over 100 patients waiting for their turn to see the doctor.

At the time, Dr. Qandil had told authorities that his practice had been backed up because he had been on vacation and there had been a wait-list of patients who needed to see them. According to reports, he told authorities that on average he was able to see 40 to 50 patients in a span of 30 minutes.

About a week later, another woman had complained to the department, claiming that Dr. Qandil tried to sell her prescriptions that she did not need, and that he was only accepting patients who had been paying in cash. 

Ali Saad, a resident from Dearborn who works next door to Dr. Qandil’s office at the Care Max Pharmacy said they’ve had past issues with Dr. Qandil’s patients overflowing into the sidewalk and blocking his entrance. Many patients would walk over to the Care Max Pharmacy with Dr. Qandil’s prescriptions, which included Vicodin, Xanax and Oxycodone. The pharmacy had suspected that many of these patients were looking to sell the drugs on the streets. 

“Patients would come here all the time and they would try to fill their prescriptions, but I would always send them away, especially people who I suspected were drug dealers,” Ali Saad told The Arab American News.

The Qandil Family Medical & Urgent Care Center in Hamtramck

Saad said in order to drive these patients away, he would make up lies about the cost of the prescriptions so that they wouldn’t continuously harass him. He’s says many of Dr. Qandil’s patients had threatened him when he would reject their prescriptions. Each time a patient came over from the doctors practice, he would also check the Michigan Automated Prescription System (MAPS) to make sure they weren’t abusing the drugs. MAPS is a statewide database that allows doctors and pharmacists to track how many prescriptions an individual was given over a certain period of time.

Saad says his pharmacy has been located next door to Dr. Qandil’s practice for about three years, and he had noticed the crowds began to grow, especially within the last year. On some days he said the environment at the location was similar to a riot, because of the large number of people who would be there at the same time to see the doctor.  

“Once people hear that a doctor is giving out prescriptions, they all tell each other about it and they all start going to him. They don’t care if the doctor is going be shut down eventually, they just want to get as much out of it as they can,” Saad added.  

Saad encourages all pharmacists to use MAPS in order to limit the number of street pharmacists who are successfully able to get their hands on prescription pills and then in turn sell it for a profit. 

“They call them doctor shoppers, and they just come around filling prescriptions from different pharmacies and no one is doing anything about it. MAPS is a system that’s available for everybody and I think every pharmacist should be using it,” Saad stated.