Odds favour a repeat of Co-60 leak
By Kamol Sukin and Pennapa Hongthong
Thailand , 25 February 2001 -- Many people in Thailand still strongly believe that the country's first nuclear accident, in February last year at a small soi in Samut Prakan, will be the last. It was a piece of bad luck and won't happen again, they say.
If that is true, then we need not worry or do anything to ensure there is not a repeat of the Cobalt-60 accident that left three dead and 10 injured.
Yet, a second such accident is likely to happen much sooner than we may think. Currently, there are as many as 500 hospitals, medical institutions and factories using radioactive materials and generating nuclear waste of some form.
And the amount of such material floating around in the country will at least double after the completion of a new nuclear plant, the Ongkharak research reactor in Nakhon Nayok.
This prompts one serious question. Are our health care and judicial systems up to the task of coping with such a high public health risk? The answer is absolutely no, not if last year's accident is anything to go by.
No one disagrees that the work of all the doctors involved in the case was admirable. Doctors in Samut Prakan were able to diagnose the three patients as suffering from radioactive exposure, while Rajavithi Hospital's doctors managed to save most of the victims' lives.
The remarkable response of the doctors in different authorities and those working on a voluntary-basis, has won the overwhelming admiration of the public. But if such an incident happened in another province, would the doctors in those areas be able to respond in the same way?
"I doubt that," said Dr Phongphisut Jong-udomkit of the Office of Health Care Reform.
He admitted that the good response the first time was more a case of 'luck' than something which reflected the capability of the nation's health care system.
It was lucky that a doctor at Samut Prakan hospital had some experience with radiation-exposed patients and decided to seek the cause of the illness, which finally led to the uncovering of the Co-60 accident, he said.
Still, doctors at Rajvithi Hospital and a senior official of the Ministry of Public Health admitted last Monday that mistakes were made in the treatment of the Cobult-60 patients. It was the first time the attending doctors had come in contact with such a medical case, they said.
Then there is the debate about the appropriate medical approach to employ in such cases.
Conventional doctors and occupational health experts have different methods for treating patients exposed to radiation. The conventional doctors judge the seriousness of the patient's condition based on his or her wounds and their white-blood cell count. But occupational disease doctors argue that chromosome diagnosis and other checks also need to be undertaken to identify radiation-exposure cases. Otherwise, a large number of victims will not be diagnosed, they said.
"Structural adjustment are needed to ensure we can cope with such a complicated and high-tech issue," said a health-care reform advocate.
The lack of a structural change in the medical system could also affect any evacuation that might be necessary in a future nuclear accident.
There are similar problems with the legal system in regards to nuclear accidents.
In the eyes of the public, the Kamol Sukosol Electric Company should have been found "guilty" and been forced to pay for its careless storage of nuclear waste. But the existing judicial system failed to function. There are a lot of loopholes and legal limitations that do not allow such punishments to be meted out despite the 1961 Atomic Energy for Peace Act, which is supposed to provide regulation for the use of nuclear materials.
That is why the 10 victims and the relatives of those who died have had to file civil suits against the company instead of environmental action. Now, they have to prove that all their suffering was the result of the company's carelessness in storing the radiation. If the case had been filed as an environmental suit, the weight of providing proof would have fallen on the company.
Kullaphol Phollawan, executive director of the Legal and Planning Office under the Attorney-General's Office, said most of the victims can not yet take legal action against the company because the full impact of the leakage on them has not yet become evident.
Although the 1992 Environmental Protection Act allows victims to take legal action against polluting companies that through mismanagement or carelessness endanger public health, they can only proceed with their action if the injuries caused are clearly visible.
This means only people who lost fingers or have visible wounds as a result of their exposure to the Cobalt-60 can take action according to the law. While those who do not have any visible symptoms have no right to seek redress under the law, even if their health deteriorates later.
Fortunately, the Attorney-General's Office appears to have learnt a lesson from the accident. A PM's Office regulation has been drafted and is now 80 per cent complete. The regulation will close most of the loopholes in the laws that relate to environmental cases.
Still, these amendments are not enough to cope with environmental cases, which tend to be complicated. All of society must learn from the accident and try together to prevent a repeat of the accident .
Source: The Nation
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