The Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) called the Paris hospital to order for breaches in the protection of employees against radiation emitted by radiotherapy devices.
La Pitié-Salpêtrière must “improve the protection of its employees against radiation emitted by radiotherapy and imaging devices”, according to the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), which visited the premises of the largest establishment of the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris last October.
In his inspection letter, ASN thus deplores “a contrast between, on the one hand, significant material and technological resources (…) and, on the other hand, human resources devoted to radiation protection which are insufficient to meet all regulatory requirements”.
No medical follow-up, dosimeter not worn …
Indeed, at the end of its inspection, ASN observed “numerous deviations (from the regulations) in the field of worker radiation protection”, “repeatedly and in several departments”.
Among the breaches of the regulations, the Agency cites a medical follow-up of “uninsured” doctors, an insufficiently updated risk assessment and workstation analyzes, “rarely worn” dosimeters in the operating room or training in “very insufficient” radiation protection.
Moreover, operating theaters are “the departments with the greatest number of deviations and where the radiation protection culture is the least present”, write the authors of this report.
Coordination difficulties
According to ASN, this situation is linked to coordination difficulties between care services, cross-functional units (radiation protection and radiation physics) and management, in this 33 hectare Parisian establishment.
Concerning the protection of patients, ASN invites the hospital to “continue its efforts and the actions undertaken”, in particular with regard to the estimation of the doses delivered which “must be systematically reported in the operating reports”.
The inspectors also note that the regulations are satisfactorily complied with with regard to environmental protection, even if improvements are required “in the management of waste and effluents from research facilities”.
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