Hospital Negligence: Technologist Splashed with Radioactive Liquid at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital

An incident at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal last April raises serious concerns about the safety of nuclear medicine staff and the lack of incident protocols.
A nuclear medicine technologist was reportedly accidentally splashed on her face and upper body with a radioactive solution while carrying a container.
This was revealed on Thursday by Catherine Pigeon, national representative of the Alliance of Professional and Technical Staff in Health and Social Services (APTS) Centre-Ouest-de-l'Île-de-Montréal, speaking to Isabelle Perron on QUB radio during the TV show broadcast on 99.5 FM in Montreal.
"[The employee] was getting ready. She had filled the syringe with a radioactive solution. She was getting ready to take it to the patient to do a positron emission tomography (PET) scan [which is used to diagnose cancer, among other things. [...] She is used to handling this type of product. She is carrying the solution, which is in another lead container, and then the container falls, shatters on the ground, and splashes her face and upper body," she said.
According to Ms. Pigeon, the response to the accident revealed a lack of preparation, a lack of clear protocol, improvised decontamination, and overwhelmed managers.
"She changed into scrubs, a hospital uniform, to change out of her clothes, which were also contaminated. She washed her face, her hands, and everything. And then the question is: what do we do? What should a person do when there's a splash on a human?"
The technologist allegedly called her manager, who then contacted the head of radiation protection at the Jewish General Hospital. "The manager didn't know what to do. The hospital's head of radiation protection didn't seem to know what to do," Pigeon said.
"There's no one on site who knows what to do, who knows where to find the coded protocol as soon as the splash hits a person. [...] If there's a spill on the ground, the protocol is more easily accessible, it's better known, but when it affects a human, there's no one involved in the accident, manager or person in charge, who knew [...] what to do to intervene."
Patients exposed to danger?
Ultimately, the technologist underwent a cursory decontamination before the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission was notified and asked to take a shower. Unfortunately, due to the lack of an accessible shower in the nuclear medicine department, the employee had to cross another department to reach the employee shower.
"That's one of the problems in the story."
A PET scan of the technologist also revealed that she had inhaled and ingested radioactive particles. The long-term consequences remain unknown. She was subsequently isolated and sent home by car.
Catherine Pigeon denounced "the fact that there is no protocol" when this type of incident occurs, specifying that an investigation has been opened by Public Health. "It's very worrying."
Contacted by the QMI Agency, the CIUSSS of West-Central Montreal has not yet responded.
Listen to the full interview in the video above.
LE Journal de Montreal