Implementation of dose management system at radiation protection board of Ghana Atomic Energy Commission.

The dose management system (DMS) is a computer software developed by the International Atomic Energy Agency for managing data on occupational exposure to radiation sources and intake of radionuclides. It is an integrated system for the user-friendly storage, processing and control of all existing internal and external dosimetry data. The Radiation Protection Board (RPB) of the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission has installed, customised, tested and using the DMS as a comprehensive DMS to improve personnel and area monitoring in the country. Personnel dose records from the RPBs database from 2000 to 2009 are grouped into medical, industrial and education/research sectors. The medical sector dominated the list of monitored institutions in the country over the 10-y period representing ∼87 %, while the industrial and education/research sectors represent ∼9 and ∼4 %, respectively. The number of monitored personnel in the same period follows a similar trend with medical, industrial and education/research sectors representing ∼74, ∼17 and ∼9 %, respectively. Analysis of dose data for 2009 showed that there was no instance of a dose above the annual dose limit of 20 mSv, however, 2.7 % of the exposed workers received individual annual doses >1 mSv. The highest recorded individual annual dose and total collective dose in all sectors were 4.73 mSv and 159.84 man Sv, respectively. Workers in the medical sector received higher individual doses than in the other two sectors, and average dose per exposed worker in all sectors is 0.25 mSv.

Assessment of annual whole-body occupational radiation exposure in education, research and industrial sectors in Ghana (2000-09).

Institutions in the education, research and industrial sectors in Ghana are quite few in comparison to the medical sector. Occupational exposure to radiation in the education, research and industrial sectors in Ghana have been analysed for a 10 y period between 2000 and 2009, by extracting dose data from the database of the Radiation Protection Institute, Ghana Atomic Energy Commission. Thirty-four institutions belonging to the three sectors were monitored out of which ∼65% were in the industrial sector. During the 10 y study period, monitored institutions ranged from 18 to 23 while the exposed workers ranged from 246 to 156 between 2000 and 2009. Annual collective doses received by all the exposed workers reduced by a factor of 2 between 2000 and 2009. This is seen as a reduction in annual collective doses in education/research and industrial sectors by ∼39 and ∼62%, respectively, for the 10 y period. Highest and least annual collective doses of 182.0 man mSv and 68.5 man mSv were all recorded in the industrial sector in 2000 and 2009, respectively. Annual average values for dose per institution and dose per exposed worker decreased by 49 and 42.9%, respectively, between 2000 and 2009. Average dose per exposed worker for the 10 y period was least in the industrial sector and highest in the education/research sector with values 0.6 and 3.7 mSv, respectively. The mean of the ratio of annual occupationally exposed worker (OEW) doses for the industrial sector to the annual OEW doses for the education/research sector was 0.67, a suggestion that radiation protection practices are better in the industrial sector than they are in the education/research sector. Range of institutional average effective doses within the education/research and industrial sectors were 0.059-6.029, and 0.110-2.945 mSv, respectively. An average dose per all three sectors of 11.87 mSv and an average dose per exposed worker of 1.12 mSv were realised for the entire study period. The entire study period had 187 instances in which exposed workers received individual annual doses >1 mSv, with exposed workers in the education/research sector primarily receiving most of this individual dose.