Hospital Radwaste in the News

["Richard, Mack L" <mrichar@iupui.edu>]

Dear Group:

The City of Indianapolis has implemented a program to collect radwaste from
the homes of I-131 patients.  This program was implemented even though the
Radiation Safety Officers at 3 of the largest hospitals in the city (myself
included) thought it was a bad idea.  The nuclear medicine physicians at
those hospitals thought it was a bad idea as well.  The article may be found
at http://www.starnews.com - scroll down to the byline entitled "City puts
lid on rare waste."  

The article implies that all local hospitals are participating in this
program; however, as I said, the 3 largest hospitals are not notifying the
city when we treat and release I-131 patients.  In lieu of the program, we
recommended that the operator of the city incinerator consider changing
their procedures and/or consider changing the language in their incinerator
permit to allow them to incinerate this waste - that recommendation
basically fell on deaf ears.  We also pointed out that collecting and
concentrating this waste in one area is more likely to lead to exposures to
individuals than simply incinerating it.  I suggested that they had better
discuss this with the NRC because if some type of incident occurs where
someone does receive an exposure (real or imagined) from this program, their
could possibly be some regulatory implications.  To my knowledge, no one
discussed this program with the NRC.

I certainly understand why the city employees didn't like sifting through
municipal waste looking for a contaminated article (e.g., kleenix, "Depends"
diaper, etc.) - such activities are particularly undesirable in the hot,
summer months in Indianapolis.  I still believe the answer may be in
educating the company that operates the city incinerator.

Regards,

Mack L. Richard, M.S., C.H.P.
Radiation Safety Officer - IUPUI/Indiana Univ. Med. Cntr.
Phone #: (317) 274-0330   Fax #: (317) 274-2332
E-Mail Address:  mrichar@iupui.edu

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