Speaker
Description
Environmental sustainability, complementing the economic and social in health services, specifically in the use of ionizing radiation in medical practices, is a determining premise in the success of this activity. In this process, besides the exposure of the patient and occupationally exposed personnel, the alteration of the environmental dose rate is unavoidable, due to the management of radioactive sources, both in operating conditions and in disuse, and the specific activity in the releases into the environment of radioactive solids, liquids and gases.
Present work exposes how it is managed in a sustainable way, at a General Hospital where the modalities of medical practice with ionizing radiation are applied; Radiotherapy, Nuclear Medicine and Radiodiagnosis, adequately the environmental radiological impact, related to the radioactive sources used and discharges into the environment.
The quantitative estimation of the behavior of the radiological component of environmental sustainability is carried out through environmental indicators based, fundamentally, on what is established in this regard in the applicable national regulations and that meet the criteria of effectiveness for indicators, recognized in practice.
This approach makes it possible to perform a comparative assessment at different moments of the quantitative status of the indicators and thus monitor the behavior of the radiological component of the environmental impact of the facility within the effort to consolidate the sustainability of the medical care activity with radiation.
