Sweden helps check Moldovan old roentgen equipment

Equipment of the regional hospitals and bankrupted industrial enterprises will be checked more accurately and faster for radiological contamination. This is due to a motor vehicle endowed with mobile sophisticate equipment for the assessment of the roentgen material, which the National Agency for Regulation of Nuclear and Radiological Activities (ANRANR) received on 17 October.

Environment Minister Gheorghe Salaru said the donation amounting to 1 million lei, was offered by the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority, within the programme funded by the Swedish government. The programme is meant to offer assistance to several former soviet states, including Moldova, to improve their radiation safety. Based on the cooperation agreement signed in June 2012 with the Moldovan government, Sweden has committed to further grant ANRANR technical assistance in the next two years.

According to the director of ANRANR, Artur Buzdugan, the new equipment will allow the inspectors of the agency to carry out a qualitative control of the old roentgen equipment from regional centres lacking necessary equipment for checking it. Thus, experts will have the opportunity to establish the medical equipment's rate of wear and prevent an eventual contamination of the patients and employees of hospitals containing radioactive materials coming from the defective equipment.

Experts ascertained the overflow of admissible radiological doses in 20 medical institutions and enterprises in the country, as a result of the checking performed from the beginning of the year till now. According to the Contravention Code, the leadership of these unities is likely to be fined from 50 to 100 contravention unities (3000 lei) for these deviations.

Adapted from Moldpres