Letter from NYU Hospital to OSHA regarding health complaints, Nov

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

NYU 170 WILLIAM STREET NEW YORK, NY 10038-2649 • '!01'~'LYlV/ILr TEL: (212) 312-5000

HOSPITAL

Friday, November 02, 2001

Mr. Richard Mendelson, Area Director U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration Manhattan Area Office 201 Varick Street, Room 646 New York, NY 10014

Re: NYU Downtown Hospital - Follow up on Complaints No. 203797899

Dear Mr. Mendelson:

First, let me begin by saying I was glad to hear that you survived this terrible tragedy, which has affected all of our lives. I am sure the impact of relocating your offices has been a major hardship on your staff and organization.

This letter is a follow up regarding the recent complaint letter received by your office concerning employees experiencing symptoms such as sore throats, rashes, cold sores and coughing as a result of dust throughout the hospital. As you may know, NYU Downtown Hospital is located just five (5) blocks from the World Trade Center site, and was seriously impacted and affected by the attack on September l ls`. I am proud to say that our staff triaged and treated over 320 seriously injured victims during the first and only wave of patients. In addition, the Hospital opened our doors to over 500 people seeking refuge from dust and debris after the collapse of-both towers. Afterwards, the Hospital remained fully operational treating over 170 firefighters and rescue workers suffering from various injuries in their attempts to find survivors, while the Hospital was operating on emergency power from our generator and without telephones. Throughout this entire tragedy and since thereafter, one of our greatest concerns has been air quality, not only for our staff, but more importantly for our patients. Please let me assure you that NYU Downtown Hospital has taken every precaution to ensure a safe environment of care for our patients and staff; including addressing the poor air quality throughout Lower Manhattan and the air quality within the Hospital. Immediately following the influx of patients, our Housekeeping Department with the assistance of outside custodial contractors began the huge task of cleaning the Hospital. We relied heavily on following the recommendations of our environmental consultants, CTSI who were onsite September 13a to properly assess the air quality inside the Hospital. They made a number of recommendations, including both outside and engineering controls to keep dust from entering the Hospital. These included installing wet walk-off mats both outside and inside the main entrances of the Hospital. In addition, they recommended using HEPA vacuums and wet-cleaning all surfaces.

The Engineering Department replaced all pre and bag filters, and washed the heating and cooling coils on each air handling unit, before returning them to normal operation, which was nearly a

MOUNT SINAI NYU TT.... --...-

NYC-WTC 000104700