The ministry’s director for radiation safety, Dr Andreas Markwitz, tells Mountain Scene his office was contacted about the machine, which was sitting outside the former Queenstown Health Clinic in Gorge Rd, about 2.30pm.
A local health protection officer was sent to inspect it within an hour, and the police notified.
However, it was quickly found to be ‘‘inoperable’’ and posed no risk to the public, Dr Markwitz says.
His office confirmed a short time later it had been decommissioned, its X-ray tube legally disposed of and the ministry notified.
It was ‘‘impossible’’ for the decommissioned machine to generate X-rays, he says.
Longtime Queenstown chiropractor and the property’s owner, Neki Patel, tells Scene he had the machine decommissioned about six weeks ago, and finds it ‘‘alarming’’ someone had seen it.
‘‘It’s sitting on private land. . .you’d have to go out of your way to find it.’’
Patel, who formerly owned Queenstown Health Clinic and remains the property’s owner, says he’s converting the building to short-term accommodation.
Chiropractor Cole Mackie, who fully took over the health clinic from Patel early last year, put the company into voluntary liquidation in November.
