Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

The Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) has re­quest­ed that the branch com­mit­tee meet with work­ers to dis­cuss re­ports of a mould in­fes­ta­tion, which the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) is deny­ing.

First vice pres­i­dent Sati Ga­jad­har In­niss, re­spon­si­ble for UTT, stat­ed that the union was un­aware of the mould prob­lem and want­ed to learn why it was not re­port­ed, as the doc­u­ment high­light­ed em­ploy­ees falling ill.

“I am be­ing told that the safe­ty de­part­ment has a re­port and has been clean­ing. How­ev­er, this was not re­port­ed by our mem­bers to the union,” she said.

Guardian Me­dia re­ceived pages from an in­ter­nal re­port ti­tled Mould Ex­po­sure and Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Health Im­pacts—Ch­aguara­mas Cam­pus (2023–2025).

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, there were five re­ports each of fa­tigue, headaches, and per­sis­tent cough.

Four work­ers al­so re­port­ed nasal con­ges­tion and si­nus pain, as well as lung burn­ing or short­ness of breath. Three em­ploy­ees ex­pe­ri­enced brain fog and mem­o­ry is­sues, while two work­ers re­port­ed al­ler­gic rhini­tis and throat ir­ri­ta­tion. There were al­so sin­gle re­ports of run­ny nose, dizzi­ness, and asth­ma flare-ups.

It de­tailed the health de­te­ri­o­ra­tion and oc­cu­pa­tion­al health im­pacts on fac­ul­ty and staff at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) Ch­aguara­mas Cam­pus, pri­mar­i­ly linked to mould ex­po­sure and poor in­door air qual­i­ty.

The time frame cov­ered is be­tween 2023 and 2025.

The re­port stat­ed that staff and fac­ul­ty had made sev­er­al re­ports re­gard­ing vis­i­ble mould growth and musty odours across var­i­ous of­fices and class­rooms, and that the is­sue per­sist­ed and wors­ened through­out 2023 de­spite pe­ri­od­ic clean­ing and lim­it­ed main­te­nance.

One work­er de­vel­oped res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­tress and sub­se­quent sec­ondary bac­te­r­i­al in­fec­tions due to pro­longed in­flam­ma­tion and im­mune sup­pres­sion.

She was re­ferred to a pul­monary spe­cial­ist af­ter an Oc­to­ber 2025 CT chest scan con­firmed lung in­flam­ma­tion con­sis­tent with mould-in­duced hy­per­sen­si­tiv­i­ty pneu­moni­tis or eosinophilic pneu­mo­nia, which is de­scribed as re­versible on­ly if ex­po­sure ceas­es.

The re­lo­ca­tion of an­oth­er work­er did not help be­cause of a shared cen­tral air-con­di­tion­ing sys­tem. That work­er re­port­ed hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion and for­mal­ly doc­u­ment­ed it. An­oth­er woman ex­pe­ri­enced flare-ups of a chron­ic med­ical con­di­tion, re­quir­ing in­creased med­ica­tion.

In a re­sponse, UTT said an air qual­i­ty test in 2024 found no wide­spread mould or mould in­fes­ta­tion and that the mould is­sue was not per­sis­tent.

Man­age­ment at the Ch­aguara­mas cam­pus said on­ly one staff mem­ber re­port­ed feel­ing un­well, but she is im­prov­ing and has been giv­en ac­com­mo­da­tions.

The uni­ver­si­ty was closed last week, but in­sist­ed this was due to an elec­tri­cal is­sue. Class­es were moved on­line tem­porar­i­ly on­ly be­cause of the elec­tri­cal prob­lem.

The re­sponse stat­ed that the mat­ter, which re­quired ad­just­ments for on­ly one em­ploy­ee, was be­ing han­dled by the nurse, cam­pus man­ag­er, and HSE team, as staff well-be­ing re­mained UTT’s pri­or­i­ty.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing, Pro­fes­sor Prakash Per­sad, who said he raised the is­sue with the uni­ver­si­ty but re­ceived the same re­sponse.

“I want the is­sue re­solved so that the en­vi­ron­ment will be safe for staff and stu­dents,” he said.

And with both re­ports be­ing com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent, Pro­fes­sor Per­sad promised that he would raise the mat­ter with man­age­ment again.