Radiation levels in eight care workers from Taipei Municipal Jen-Ai Hospital who were contaminated with radioactive iodine two weeks ago, were 20 times lower than acceptable levels, the Atomic Energy Council said yesterday.
The contamination was caused by spilt urine from thyroid-cancer patients who received radiation treatment at the hospital, council officials said.
Cancer patients are given radioactive iodine, I-131, either orally or intravenously. After treatment, the patients excrete the I-131 in their urine.
In order to separate radioactive waste, the hospital provides patients with a special room with a toilet that flushes into a storage tank made of lead.
The urine is then kept in closed containers for one or two months in order to allow the radionuclide to decay.
Su Shian-jang (蘇獻章), director of the council's Department of Radiation Protection, said yesterday that the hospital failed to keep the urine that was contaminated by I-131 separate from other waste products, leading to the contamination incident on Jan. 14.
Su said the contamination incident was not uncovered until a local resident sent an e-mail message on Jan.22 to the Taipei City Government's Bureau of Health.
The council inspected the hospital the following day and ordered the closure of contaminated areas.
As of press time yesterday, the radiation-treatment center and the intensive-care unit of the hospital remained closed.
"When the affected floors will be opened depends on our further investigation," Su said.
Su said that the council will carefully review a radiation-safety assessment report on the incident, which is expected within days.
The eight healthcare workers who were exposed to the contaminated urine were examined on Monday by employees of the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research, which is under the administration of the council.
Su said that the level of radiation in one of the hospital workers was 0.05 millisieverts, or 20 times less than the acceptable level set by law, while the levels in the other seven workers were too low to be read.
Su said the council did not find any safety violations when it inspected eight other hospitals last week that offer the same form of radioactive treatment.
Su said that a preliminarily analysis suggests the accidents do not pose a major threat either to the medical personnel or to the environment.
Chiu Shu-shih (
Chiu added that radiation levels in the hospital had returned to normal background levels as of Sunday.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
RSS