Have Your Heard About PRMD's?

We recently advised of changes to the Radiation Protection and Control Act 2021 and Radiation Protection and Control Regulations 2022.

Currently, South Australian dental practitioners performing intra-oral radiography are exempt from the requirement to wear personal radiation monitoring devices (PRMD).

Under the new regulations, (commencing February 2024), staff in dental practices providing all forms of radiography will be required to wear a Personal Radiation Monitoring Device (PRMD) to verify workers receive less than 1milliSievert per annum exposure per year from dental radiation exposure/s. 

The EPA will be able to levy financial penalties of up to $10,000 for non-compliance.

We have prepared an application to the EPA seeking a review of this decision. Our position is that dental practitioners in South Australia (consistent with other States and Territories) should be exempt from the requirement to wear an PRMD for intra-oral radiography and this should extend to OPG’s, Lateral Cephalometrics and CBCT imaging as well unless the individual or practice determines personal monitoring devices are necessary (for example: pregnant workers, clinicians whose occupations involve repeated high daily exposure rates such as dental radiologists). 

Our data quantifies what we believe to represent a worst-case industry exposure at 0.084 milliSieverts per year. We believe occupational risk to practitioners to be negligible and have submitted collated data to the EPA in support of our Application. In response, the EPA is currently reviewing their stance on personal radiation monitoring device (PRMD) requirements for dental practice.

Watch this space for updates!!!