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Re: ALARA at hospital
I'm probably going to have to duck the flamethrowers that will come my way
as a result of this but the insulation in my office is asbestos, so...
Has every one forgotten what the 'R' means? In my not so humble opinion,
it is most certainly not reasonable to delay new paitents comming in for
thyroid therapy. I don't know what your room protocol is like, but you
might try covering the floor in absorbent paper and lining the bed with
a plastic sheet. Thus when the patient moves out, you clean up the paper
and sheets, store THAT for decay somewhere and the room turn around could
be reduced to one day following a room inspection by your HP's. As a plus,
the week that you wait for the trash to decay will save the expense of
sending the stuff to the Canadian equivalent of Barnwell. The increased
cost of lining the room should be significantly less than the loss of
revenue from not using the room for a week.
With this method maybe the person(s) who clean up the room will have to
spend less time in the room, (i.e. peel, bag, meter and go) decreasing
your dose to personnel, making everyone (including AECB) happier.
That might be considered reasonable, no?
I calmly await the storm,
Scott Kniffin
Scott.D.Kniffin.1@gsfc.nasa.gov
RSO, Unisys Corp. @ Lanham, MD
CHO, Radiation Effects Facility, GSFC, NASA, Greenbelt, MD
The opinions expressed here are my own. They do not necessarily represent
the views of Unisys Corporation or NASA. This information has not been
reviewed by my employer or supervisor.
At 10:44 12/10/97 -0600, you wrote:
>Here's an example from medicine:
>We treat thyroid patients with I-131. Afterwards, invariably the patient
>room is contaminated. The AECB (Canada's equivalent to the NRC) requires
>us to decontaminate before the room is reused. The limits are ALARA
>inspired, and are much lower than the annual limits for MPD in the
>regulations. Because we cannot always decontaminate to these levels, the
>room is often 'closed down' for a period of several days or weeks to allow
>for decay. Thus we:
>1 spend a great deal of time and money trying to meet the ALARA limits,
>2 lose a room, resulting in delays for admitting new patients
>3 lose the revenue from the private room
>There are other aspects, but hopefully this gives you an idea.
>Regards
>Chris Davey
> RSO Cross Cancer Institute 11560 University Avenue
> Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 1Z2
> (403)432-8616 fax 432-8615 email cdavey@med.phys.ualberta.ca
> pager number 005, just call (403) 432-8771 and ask for that pager