The teacher who first raised the alarm about harmful mould at CedarBridge Academy three years ago is still waiting to find out if she will receive financial compensation for her shattered health.

Wendy Robinson has stayed publicly silent about her illness and its believed cause since she first collapsed at the school and had to be rushed to hospital in an ambulance, waking up with no feeling in her legs.

But yesterday the Somerset mother-of-three and grandmother told The Royal Gazette she was tired of waiting for Government to do the right thing and sick of having her letters to Ministers and officials ignored.

"After almost 20 years of teaching, I have been literally kicked to the kerb," she said. "I'm not the only one and you can print that. I can name ten that have been severely injured from this.

"Everybody is afraid to talk to the press but I have nothing to lose. I was trying to do it the right way; I thought that they would do right by me."

CedarBridge was closed for a clean-up of mould in November 2006 and the results of an inquiry into the crisis published the following May — known as the Wachiira report — revealed that one student almost died and at least 13 others suffered sickness "very probably" caused by the environment. An unknown number of staff were affected.

Mrs. Robinson, who taught interior decorating, child development, food and nutrition and textile design at the Island's largest public school, began to suffer from serious problems with her sinuses in 2003 and eventually had surgery to clean out her sinus cavity.

Painful symptoms started after Hurricane Fabian damaged the roof at CedarBridge and her classroom ceiling started leaking. "The children would come in my room and say 'your room smells funny, I get a headache in here'.

"I kept having problems. I started to "I kept having problems. I started to have flu symptoms. I had a cold but couldn't get rid of the cold. The odour kept getting really bad. A couple of times I had to go on the porch and teach."

One day she was unable to get her breath in class and was taken to the school office, where she collapsed.

"When I came to I was in the ambulance and I was numb," she said. "I was in hospital for two weeks but they couldn't figure out what was wrong. I hardly could get up I was so weak."

Mrs. Robinson returned to work but the problems started again. "I hung in there for as long as I could," she said. "But one day I was numb from my waist down for almost 24 hours. It started to affect my joints."

In September, 2004, Mrs. Robinson says she passed literature to principal Kalmar Richards on sick building syndrome. The following month, no longer able to work, she wrote to the Ministry of Education describing her symptoms and requesting medical retirement.

She was told she would have to work in another school and eventually went to Sandys Secondary Middle School as a substitute but became sick again.

Her GP Fiona Ross wrote to Government in February this year to say that Mrs. Robinson's sinus troubles began in 1999 but worsened to such an extent in 2003 that she became incapacitated.

"It would appear that Mrs. Robinson's symptoms were much worse when she was in CedarBridge Academy for any period of time, with symptoms worsening the longer she was exposed," wrote the doctor.

"She has presented to the office after visiting the school on a few occasions and I can verify that her symptoms have been aggravated by the environment in the school building." Dr. Ross added: "Originally, I was not convinced that Mrs. Robinson had these reactions due to the environment at CedarBridge but over time it has become more apparent that she has allergies to that building and more recently to an allergen at Sandys Middle School."

The Allergy Clinic also confirmed in a letter sent to Chief Medical Officer John Cann that Mrs. Robinson was allergic to dust, mould and cockroaches.

A recently leaked report on the school from US consultants S. Harris & Co revealed that CedarBridge was infested with cockroaches.

Dr. Cann agreed in April this year that Mrs. Robinson should be granted retirement on medical grounds but she has yet to receive a pension, any financial compensation for the pay she has lost since she stopped work and her salary was stopped in 2004 or reimbursement for "thousands of dollars" of out-of-pocket medical expenses.

Letters to the Ministry of Education have gone unanswered as has a plea to Premier Dr. Ewart Brown, sent on November 9 this year, in which she wrote that she was considering seeking legal advice.

"It was my desire to have this matter resolved amicably and without publicity," said her letter.

This newspaper was present yesterday when Mrs. Robinson spoke on the telephone to a lawyer at the Attorney General's chambers. She told him: "I have used up all my assets trying to survive."

He told her he did not have all the information he needed in order to advise Government of its liabilities and had never been given the Wachiira report.

Government was silent when asked to comment on Mrs. Robinson's case yesterday.