Assessment of Regulatory Compliances in Diagnostic X-ray Facilities in Tangail District, Bangladesh

Due to increasing public demand, diagnostic x-ray facilities are expanding from the city to district even at rural areas faster than ever before in Bangladesh. At the same time radiological safety issues are also becoming the matter of great concern in this area of medical sector. In the present study, a comprehensive investigation is carried out on radiological safety matters in the 34 diagnostic x-ray facilities at Tangail districts in Bangladesh. The main objective of this study is to verify the compliance of regulatory requirements with respect to the radiation safety. The safety parameters are assessed emphasizing particularly on the room size, shielding material at entrance door and control panel and thickness of side walls of x-ray installations. It is very important to investigate the status of regulatory compliance requirements at the stage of designing of an x-ray room. It has been found that 62% facilities maintain the shielding properly and 26% have no shield at all against the radiation. Nearly acceptable room size was found only in the two facilities. Among the facilities few of them use old and non-calibrated x-ray machine. To some extent unexpected dose variation with room size is also observed. The present study on radiological safety status of diagnostic x-ray installations may be a reasonably good presentation of the situation in the country as a whole. The study can contribute significantly to the improvement of radiological safety in near future.