Thirty Years of Radiation Records in Qatar: Four Registers

Four registers, named

Article 35 is short and entirely practical. The licensee is bound to keep the following registers, and then four: the registers for the radiation sources; the registers for the occupational medical examination of the workers in the institution, a register for each worker; the registers for incidents, whether relating to persons, to devices or to equipment; and the registers for the radiation exposure of the radiation workers, a register for each worker.

Two of the four are per worker, and the text says so twice. The medical register also carries a condition on who may perform the examination: the medical examination is to be through a medical centre approved by the Council. A clinic of the facility's own choosing does not satisfy the article unless the Council has approved it.

The forms are not left to the facility either: the Council determines the forms required for these registers. Before designing a spreadsheet, ask for the form.

One month, thirty years, and what happens if the company ends

Three obligations sit in one paragraph. First, an annual appointment: the licensee is responsible for making all these registers available to the Council within not more than one month from the end of the year. Second, authentication: the registers must be stamped with the seal of the General Secretariat and signed by the Secretary-General. Third, confidentiality and retention: the registers are confidential in nature, and must be organised and kept for not less than thirty years, unless the General Secretariat decides otherwise.

Thirty years outlives most employment contracts, most equipment, and a good number of companies. The Regulation thought about the last case: where the institution's business ends before the thirty years have run, for any reason - death, merger, dissolution, a change in the nature of its work or otherwise - these registers pass to the Council. Records do not close with the company; they move.

The practical consequence is a storage decision, not a filing decision. Paper in a site office does not survive thirty years of moves, and an unbacked-up folder on one computer does not either. Whatever the medium, it has to be readable by someone who is not in the room today, and handed over intact if the company ends.

The worker's exposure record: seven things in it

The last part of Article 35 says what the per-worker exposure record is for: the licensee must ensure that the worker's radiation exposure register allows the person's cumulative dose to be calculated at any time. Not a stack of monthly readings - a record from which a cumulative dose can be computed on any day someone asks.

Then seven items are listed, and the first and the last are the ones facilities usually cannot produce: the worker's previous radiation history, covering all the radiation doses he received from all his earlier practices; and his radiation status, that is the total cumulative dose from all the radiation work he has carried out in his working life. A worker who arrives from another employer arrives with a history, and the record is supposed to carry it.

Article 36: leave, an allowance, and a sentence that matters

Article 36 is headed The rights of radiation workers, and grants two things: the radiation worker is given additional leave and a radiation hazard allowance, proportionate to the scale and the nature of the hazard he is exposed to. Both are proportionate to the hazard, not flat.

The amounts are not in the Regulation. They come in accordance with the rules and categories issued by a decision of the Council of Ministers, on the proposal of the Council after coordination with the bodies concerned in the State. So a facility asking what percentage to pay is asking the wrong document - the answer sits in a Cabinet decision, and it is worth confirming the current one in writing.

Then the closing sentence, which is the reason this article belongs beside Article 35 and not in a payroll manual: these benefits are not considered a substitute for providing the workers with all the radiation protection measures. Paying a hazard allowance does not buy a facility out of shielding, monitoring or records.

Questions people actually ask

How the Institute can help

Records are the part of compliance that cannot be produced retrospectively. A facility either has thirty years of a worker's dose history or it does not.

The Institute helps set up the four registers against the Council's forms, build a worker exposure record from which a cumulative dose can be produced on demand, and train the people who keep them - so the annual review a month after year end is a printout, not a project.

Scope of what the Institute does: training and consulting. Field radiation surveys are carried out through specialist partners working in the field. The Institute does not carry out laboratory analysis, instrument calibration or equipment testing.

This explanation is published for awareness by the radiation protection team at ALDuha Institute for Training and Environmental Consulting. The English text is an explanation, not a certified translation: the Arabic text published in the Official Gazette governs in case of any difference, and this article does not replace the official text or advice from the competent authority. Last updated 25 September 2026.