Canberra Times
Psychiatrist fined for self-prescribing
By Cassandra Morgan
July 15, 2022

— Excerpt

A Victorian psychiatrist has been hit with a $15,000 fine and suspended from practising for three months for self-prescribing restricted medicines.

The psychiatrist, Yogananda Ballekere, prescribed himself 13 different medicines on 38 occasions between January 2017 and August 2018, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal found.

Falsely using another person’s name, he also self-prescribed medications in December 2014 and October 2016.

A number of the medications were psychotropic and one, Clonazepam, is classed as a drug of dependence…

He used a third party’s name on the prescriptions to hide his anxiety and depression from other doctors and pharmacists, to avoid embarrassment…