New directorate to monitor radiation centres in state

X-Ray, CT Scan and other radiation machines in hospitals and other healthcare centres will soon be monitored by a state-level safety directorate to be set up as per the guidelines laid down by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB).

This comes following a proposal given by the commissioner, Department of Health and Family Welfare, for establishing such an agency for better monitoring of centres using radiation. The AERB had earlier noted the need to monitor the equipment that emit radiation in medical facilities.

Dr Swatantrakumar Banakar, Deputy Director and State Nodal Officer, Radiation Safety, said that the directorate will act as a regulatory body.

“Till now, we have had regulatory bodies for hospitals and scanning centres. There was no authority to keep watch on the diagnostic centres. The inspections were done by a board in Mumbai. Even licences were issued based on online applications and centres were not inspected to ascertain whether they comply with safety norms,” Dr Banakar said.

For instance, he said, X-ray should be conducted in a room that has lead lining and windows closed. “If a pregnant woman spends an hour there, the baby could be harmed. In such centres, it is necessary to have warning signs. All these will be ensured by the directorate,” he said.

The establishment of the new directorate will also mean a watch on whether qualified technicians are hired and whether necessary safety procedures are followed by the technician at the time of use and the amount of radiation he is exposed to. The directorate is set to be functional in two months now.

Though the directorate will have no authority to fix rates for services, it can still regulate the pricing, he said.

Karnataka has over 20,000 X-ray centres, over 1,000 CT scan centres, more than 100 mammography centres besides radiation therapy centres that use radiation. Recently, the Supreme Court had directed that there was a need to establish directorates in all states in association with the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, Mumbai.

With the numbers being too many for the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board to keep a tab on, it was felt that the states need to do monitoring.

The government has ordered that the department reorganise its manpower to fill the posts and ensure that no additional expenses are incurred for the establishment of the directorate.