RE: Cleaning Iodine Therapy Patient Rooms

[Karin Gordon <KGordon@exchange.HSC.MB.CA>]

Chris-

Outline the situation to your AECB licensing officer in a letter -
because what your administrator is proposing is not consistent with the
information you supplied (re: contamination monitoring/decon of RNT
hospital bedrooms) when you applied for/renewed your licence.  It's
highly likely you will get a written response indicating that this
proposed change would not be acceptable to the AECB.   I have found AECB
staff (and the letters they write) very supportive when dealing with
administrators who are busy cutting corners and have no understanding of
radiation safety.

I would also point out that the training requirements (see the AECB
C-200 consultative document "Radiation Safety Training for Radioisotope,
Medical Accelerator and Transportation Workers" issued in October 1998)
are quite rigorous for those persons measuring and interpreting
contamination levels and working with radioactivity - which certainly
includes decontamination.  If indeed the hospital decided to push ahead
with this, you should insist on a minimum 2-3 day training program (with
annual refreshers, etc) for any housekeeper who might be assigned this
task - in addition, that individual should be issued a TLD badge and
undergo I-131 bioassay after each room clean-up.  Because of the new
AECB dose limit for members of the public and the small amount of
internalized radioiodine that might exceed that level, you could make a
case for designating any such worker as a "Nuclear Energy Worker" under
the new regulations - I'm sure the individual housekeeping workers and
the union will not be thrilled by the prospect. 

Hope to see you at the CRPA conference next week.

Regards

Karin
*****************************************************
Karin Gordon
Radiation Safety Officer
Health Sciences Centre
GC214 - 820 Sherbrook Street,
Winnipeg, Manitoba
CANADA R3A 1R9

phone (204) 787-2903
fax      (204) 787-1313
e-mail  kgordon@hsc.mb.ca    





 

>----------
>From: 	Chris Davey[SMTP:cdavey@med.phys.ualberta.ca]
>Sent: 	Friday, May 21, 1999 5:21 PM
>To: 	Multiple recipients of list
>Subject: 	Cleaning Iodine Therapy Patient Rooms
>
>I'm sure this will disturb some people, but at our Cancer Treatment
>Hospital, the Nuclear Medicine group has lost some techs due to cut-backs.
>They do not have the time to decontaminate the therapy patient rooms after
>each patient, and the suggestion has been made that we train housekeeping
>staff to do this.
>
>I have reservations on several points, but want to hear if anyone is
>already successfully doing this, or alternatively, if they have tried it
>and found that it didn't work.
>
>Regards,
>
>Chris Davey
>
>
> RSO / LSO  Cross Cancer Institute  11560 University Avenue
> Edmonton   Alberta   Canada  T6G 1Z2
> (780)  432-8616   fax 432-8615
> email: cdavey@med.phys.ualberta.ca
> pager number 005, just call (780)  432-8771 and ask for that pager
>
>
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