AERB to conduct surprise inspections of X-ray facilities

Stricter actions will be taken against those who grossly violate the AERB norms

Raelene Kambli – Mumbai

The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) recently ordered the shutdown of X-ray facilities at three private hospitals and two diagnostic centres in Mumbai owing to non-compliance of requisites specified by the authority. Following this move, AERB plans to have more surprise inspections of facilities in Nagpur, Pune, Nashik, Chennai, Kolkata and Delhi. The AERB also plans to conduct more surprise inspections across the country. According to Dr AU Sonawane, Head-RSD, AERB, “The Board last year revised the safety code for X-ray facilities and its compliance. Also, AERB came up with a rule for compulsory registration of X-ray facilities for which they started off a web-based registration service. As per AERB, the major requisite for registration and compliance include, patient safety, good quality imaging and less radiation exposure.”

Dr Sonawane further informs that after the launch of their online registration service around 20 thousand X-ray facilities have been registered in a span of eight to nine months. The Board has also issued several advertisements for the same. However, expressing his worry about many unregistered X-ray facilities still functioning within the country he said, “On April 8, we started off this surprise inspection to check on whether these X-ray facilities functioning within the city of Mumbai are registered and are compliant with our safety code. During our inspection we found that medical institutions including Pt Madan Mohan Malviya Hospital, Healthcare Diagnostic Lab, Metro Care Diagnostic Centre, Millennium Life Line Hospital, and New Millennium Multi-speciality Hospital seriously violated our norms. Therefore, we ordered a complete shutdown of these institutes. Further, we have also issued warnings against operating X-ray equipment without AERB registration to Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, Sion, Dr VT Shah Dignostic Centre and Clinic, Matunga, Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation Hospital, Vashi, Insight CBCt, Vashi, Health Spring, Vashi and Neway Hospital, Sanpada.”

In the next three to four months, many more surprise inspections will be conducted and stricter actions will be taken against those who grossly violate the AERB norms.

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