Unpleasant fumes on Monday forced employees of the Administrator-General’s Department in downtown Kingston to retreat from their office inside the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) building on Ocean Boulevard.

The Jamaica Observer saw employees coughing as they gathered outside the building. One woman, whom the Observer was told had respiratory problems, was seen being supported by co-workers. Others were heard inquiring whether an ambulance would be needed to take her to the hospital.

One female employee shared that she had to run out of the building as the fumes caused her to cough.

“It’s just on the third floor. Apparently they did some spraying and painting,” she said.

Another female employee said that it was not the first time that work done on the building had impacted employees.

“They should have checked the place over the weekend to see what was happening. It’s not the first they did work and this happened. It was a minor work that they did the last time. Now that they did a major work this time we should still be out of the office. We were out of the office for the entire week last week because of the work. Apparently what they should have done was open up the windows to air out the place. Some of the persons gathered out here are from the fourth floor so apparently the fumes were affecting them as well,” she said.

A male employee said that the work created a lot of dust.

“There are persons who can’t deal with it; some of them have asthma and sinusitis. They had to rush one of my co-workers to the hospital because of it. Our office is the same office that has had a persistent mould problem over the years. Right now we are just waiting on our bosses to tell us if we should go home or if it is safe to go back inside,” he said.