Radiological protection performance in radiopharmaceutical facility

Abstract

The Radiopharmaceutical Facility (RF) of the IPEN-CNEN/SP has processed and handled several radionuclides and compounds, in unsealed form, in amounts that require specific procedures to avoid contamination, intake and unexpected exposures of the workers, in order to do not resulting doses over of the waited standards. The (RF) is committed to good work area management of all its potential risks, minimizing risks to the work area, and anticipating and addressing potential problems before they pose a threat to the quality of the local areas. The radiological protection team has established a radiological protection program whose purpose is to provide an adequate occupational worker protection system in agreement to national and international radiological protection standards. The main objective of this study is to correlate the unusual events occurred in the (RF), over the years, that in some way contributed with failure in the process that led to an intake and or an external exposure, or contamination in the workplace. For the analysis, the reports from the radiation protection supervisor, complemented by interviews with the workers and radiation protection officers were considered. Several indicators were identified from the analyses of data that can be used to evaluate the occupational radiation exposures received at (RF) facility. In addition, the radiological protection measures adopted, the lessons learned to prevent new events, of the same nature, and it benefits that include enhancing the workplace environment and reducing the number of incidents were implemented and discussed in this paper. The detailed nature of the data available allowed investigating the distribution and trends of the data.