Tate Modern worker claims 'cold' gallery made her sick for a year

Elizabeth Andrews, 40, who suffers from Crohn's disease, which causes inflammation of the intestine, claims the gallery's vast size and air conditioning made her illness so severe that she had to take more than a year off work.

In papers lodged with an employment tribunal, Miss Andrews, who has worked for the Tate since 2003, said her health problems worsened when she was forced to relocate from Tate Britain in Millbank across the Thames to the South Bank gallery in November 2007.

The supervisor, from Rochester in Kent, said the effects of the move made her "desperately unhappy" and her illness deteriorated so rapidly within three weeks of her assuming the new post that she was off sick for 14 months.

She said she had "reluctantly" agreed to move to the larger modern art gallery after she had an argument with a colleague at a party.

In a statement she said: "I was told that this could not continue and that one of us would have to transfer to Tate Modern. I did not want to move and asked what would happen if I refused.

"They told me that they would ask the other woman and if she refused it would be passed to a committee, whereby one of us would be dismissed, most likely me. On that basis I had no choice and reluctantly agreed to move."

She also claims that arrangements to accommodate the symptoms of her condition that were in place at Tate Britain were not transferred to Tate Modern.

Miss Andrews is claiming that the "much bigger and colder" Sir Giles Gilbert Scott-designed former power station was the reason for her worsening health and that her illness was not taken into account before her transfer.

Her statement said: "It became clear that it was not suitable for me. It is a much bigger and colder building than Tate Britain. The air conditioning from the CCTV room where I worked from time to time made my back condition worse."

Miss Andrews made repeated requests to be transferred back to Tate Britain during her time off. She was allowed to return to the older gallery in March this year and still works there.

Richard Hignett, representing Tate, said the claim was based on "historical issues" and was not submitted in time.

But a judge dismissed Mr Hignett's attempt on behalf of the Board of Trustees of the Tate Gallery to have the tribunal claim thrown out and a hearing is due to be held in August.