Topical issues of the provision of the radiation safety for dental X-ray examinations

Abstract

As a part of administrative reform and “regulatory guillotine” in Russia in 2020-2021, several significant changes in the governmental regulation of dental care have occurred: implementation of new version of Order of provision of dental care and infrastructure of governmental dental facilities; approval of Rules of carrying of X-ray examinations; development of changes in the sanitary-epidemiological requirements to medical facilities. Meanwhile, the requirements on the radiation safety in the medical facilities remained the same. The lack of coordination during the development of new documents between the Ministry of Healthcare and Rospotrebnadzor resulted in preservation of the existing problems with the use of X-ray equipment in dentistry (for example, related to the allocation of dental X-ray units in residual and public buildings) and appearance of new problems (for example, removal of a requirement for the license in radiology for dentists). The study is focused on the analysis of the issues of regulation of the provision of radiation safety for dental care of public of the Russian Federation. It includes a review of the acting regulatory documents of the Ministry of Healthcare and Rospotrebnadzor, regulating the allocation of dental X-ray units and provision of dental X-ray examinations, with subsequent identification of the major issues and problems. The results of the study indicate that changes in the regulatory documents of the Ministry of Healthcare implemented in 2020-2021 contradict the acting requirements on radiation safety. It is necessary to further improve the legislative base regulating the dental care: harmonization of the acting requirements on the equipment of the dental rooms, orders and standards of dental care, training of staff. The harmonized base should result in a provision of qualitative dental care and radiation safety.