Evaluation of Earthing System in some of Khartoum State Hospital

Abstract

The importance of this study being discussed offer one of the most important electrical safety requirements (electrical grounding) in health care facilities, where the lack of grounding system in these important facilities leads to damage and electrical hazards (damages in medical devices lead to a wrong diagnosis or treatment, burns, Electric shocks to the patient and the device’s user ). The purpose of this study is to evaluate the application of the grounding system in hospitals and find out the reasons for the absence of such regulations on these important facilities and then search for solutions to these reasons. Sixteen hospitals have been surveyed (Three in Khartoum state and thirteen hospitals in different states), using a checklist designed by the researcher as a first stage and then the results were analyzed using the statistical program SPSS. In the second stage, the researcher conducted field visits to do a visual scan for seven hospitals to determine the current status of the application of grounding systems. The third and final stage is to search for an alternative metal to pure copper used in the wedge grounding in attempt to reduce the cost of the grounding system. The results showed that most of the hospitals that have been surveyed either had not contain a grounding system, or the grounding system does not function because it's old or due to not knowing it's place , in some cases the system exists and is enabled but doesn't meet all the need for the hospital .also the researcher has reached to the possibility of using steel metal after painted electrochemically with copper instead of using pure copper earthing system, which led to reduce the cost of rod from 800 pound to 50 pound.