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HILO >> It will cost Hilo Medical Center more than $100,000 to temporarily fix a radiation vault leak at an oncology clinic.
The Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported Wednesday hospital administrators selected Mississippi-based Caffey Inc. to do the work, which involves placing a 20-foot shipping container filled with a high-density concrete block next to the outside wall of a vault surrounding a radiation therapy machine in the clinic.
A leak was discovered in the ceiling of the vault at Hawaii Pacific Oncology Center last year, prompting the hospital to close three small office spaces of a Veterans Affairs clinic upstairs. Tests showed the Veterans Affairs workers wouldn’t have been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation.
A second location in the vault was later found to potentially leak radiation during use of a linear accelerator.
