M.D./108 834

COBALT 60 FOR WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Press Statement By the Minister for National Development, The Honourable David Fairbairn, D.F.C., MÂ«P.

A radioactive cobalt 60 source, the first delivered to Western

Australia, has been installed, at Radiotherapy Centre, St. John of God

Hospital, Subiaco, Perth.

This was announced tonight by the Minister for National DevelopÂ­

ment, Mr. David Fairbairn.

The 1700 curie source will be used in the treatment of cancer.

It was installed in a teletherapy machine, which is the first of its make

to be used in Australia. '

The source was produced in the Australian Atomic Energy CommisÂ­

sion1  s HIFAR (High Flux Australian Reactor) nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights,

near Sydney, and was shipped to Western Australia in a heavily shielded two-

ton lead and steel transport container. .

HIFAR is one of the few reactors in the world capable of producing

the intensely radioactive cobalt used in cancer treatment.

The source was irradiated in the reactor for a period of almost

four years.

Mr. Fairbairn added that the source consisted of six small discs

of encapsulated cobalt, each the sise of a sixpence. The discs, doubly

sealed in a stainless steel source capsule, had been transferred remotely

from the transport container to the teletherapy machine by a specially trained

member of the Commission's technical staff. .

26th August, 1965. P.M.

