For the past 10 years, Carla McNelly@@directory@@ has been plagued with breathing problems, fatigue and eyes and nose and throat irritation. When the Oregon Hall employee steps out of the building she works in, however, the problems disappear.
“The fact is that the symptoms … are not present when I leave Oregon Hall,” the University of Oregon graduate student said. “My eyes clear up when I leave the building for my hour-long lunch break or step outside for my 15-minute break.”
McNelly’s health complaints match those commonly recognized in “sick building syndrome,” in which an employee’s health is affected by poor air quality in a building and often caused by flawed heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems.
She has had health problems since she started working in Oregon Hall in December 2003, and she is not the only one. In 2006, more than 68 Oregon Hall employees signed a petition saying that they believed the air quality in the building was affecting their health.
What exactly is causing these symptoms remains a mystery to both employees and UO staff investigating the problem.
According to Andre Le Duc,@@http://www.registerguard.com/rg/news/local/29678003-84/employees-hall-oregon-building-symptoms.html.csp@@ the director of UO Risk Management, the studies the University has conducted have drawn inconclusive results about Oregon Hall’s air quality and what is affecting employees.
In August 2012, Industrial Hygienist Adam Jones@@directory@@ was hired and has been conducting studies in Oregon Hall. According to Jones, the cause behind sick building complaints are usually fairly easy to identify, but so far he has not found a cause for employees’ health complaints.
“This has dragged out pretty long,” Jones said. “It’s a challenge.”
Previously, the UO had the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, as well as Portland-based air inspection company Wise Steps, conduct investigations of Oregon Hall’s air quality. The tests came back negative for any potential cause for employees’ health complaints.
“OSHA made a very thorough investigation,” Le Duc said. “They then issued their report of what their findings were, and they were inconclusive.”
According to McNelly, the UO’s efforts to investigate the problem have been unsatisfactory. Although she said she appreciates the work Jones is doing now, when she first complained to the UO, her complaints were handled dismissively.
“I have been lied to by Campus Operations Health and Safety Management,” she said. “I have been told that I was the only one experiencing these problems. Once I started talking with others in my building, I realized this wasn’t true.”
Last September, the UO held two town hall meetings discussing the Oregon Hall complaints. Employees were told that a website to anonymously post their health complaints would be established, but McNelly has seen no further development of the site.
The way that the UO has handled the problem has led to a distrust among the employees, she said.
“We haven’t heard from them since the September town hall meetings,” she said. “They promised to be transparent but we haven’t seen it.”
Although Jones has been unable to draw a conclusion about employees’ health complaints, he is hopeful that he will have results by summer.
Le Duc hopes that the work being done will build trust between the UO and Oregon Hall employees.
“A lot of the work we’re doing is to establish trust between our department and employees,” he said.