Veterans hospitals are struggling to interchange a whole bunch of medical doctors and nurses who’ve left the well being care system this yr because the Trump administration pursues its pledge to concurrently slash Division of Veterans Affairs workers and enhance care.
Many job candidates are turning down presents, frightened that the positions aren’t secure and uneasy with the general path of the company, in response to inside paperwork examined by ProPublica. The data present practically 4 in 10 of the roughly 2,000 medical doctors supplied jobs from January by means of March of this yr turned them down. That’s quadruple the speed of medical doctors rejecting presents throughout the identical time interval final yr.
The VA in March stated it supposed to chop its workforce by a minimum of 70,000 folks. The information sparked alarm that the cuts would damage affected person care, prompting public reassurances from VA Secretary Doug Collins that front-line well being care workers could be immune from the proposed layoffs.
Final month, division officers up to date their plans and stated they would scale back the workforce by 30,000 by the tip of the fiscal yr, which is Sept. 30. So many staffers had left voluntarily, the company stated in a press launch, that mass layoffs wouldn’t be crucial.
“VA is headed in the correct path,” Collins said in a statement.
However a evaluate of a whole bunch of inside staffing data, together with interviews with veterans and staff, reveal a far much less rosy image of how staffing is affecting veterans’ care.
After six years of including medical workers, the VA this yr is down greater than 600 medical doctors and about 1,900 nurses. The variety of medical doctors on workers has declined every month since President Donald Trump took workplace. The company additionally misplaced twice as many nurses because it employed between January and June, data seen by ProPublica present.
In response to questions, a VA spokesperson didn’t dispute numbers about workers losses at facilities throughout the nation however accused ProPublica of bias and of “cherry-picking points which are largely routine.”
Company spokesperson Peter Kasperowicz stated that the division is “working to handle” the variety of medical doctors declining job presents by rushing up the hiring course of and that the company “has a number of methods to navigate shortages,” together with referring veterans to non-public suppliers and telehealth appointments. A nationwide scarcity of well being care employees has made hiring and retention tough, he stated.
Kasperowicz stated that the current modifications on the company haven’t compromised care and that wait occasions are getting higher after worsening beneath President Joe Biden.
Whereas wait occasions for main, psychological well being and specialty look after present sufferers did improve throughout Biden’s presidency, the VA’s statistics present solely slight reductions since Trump took workplace in January.
Nonetheless, appointment wait occasions for brand spanking new sufferers in search of main and specialty care have barely elevated, in response to a report obtained by ProPublica.
As of early July, the common wait time nationally to schedule outpatient surgical procedure appointments for brand spanking new sufferers was 41 days, which is 13 days increased than the purpose set by the VA and practically two days longer than a yr in the past.
In some places, the waits for appointments are even longer.
On the Togus VA Medical Middle in Augusta, Maine, inside data present that there’s a two-month await main care appointments, which is triple the VA’s purpose and 38 days longer than it was right now final yr. The spouse of a disabled Marine veteran who receives care on the facility advised ProPublica that it has change into more durable in current months to schedule appointments and to get well timed care.
Her husband, she stated, served in Somalia and is totally disabled. He has not had a main care physician assigned to him for months after his earlier physician left over the winter, she stated.
“He has no one who is in command of his well being care,” stated the lady, who didn’t wish to be named due to fears her feedback would possibly have an effect on advantages for her husband. “It was by no means like this earlier than. There’s an absence of workers, empty rooms, locked doorways. It looks like one thing that’s not wholesome.”
Kasperowicz stated the VA is taking “aggressive motion” to recruit main care medical doctors in Maine and anticipates hiring two new medical doctors by the tip of the yr.
Nationwide, data reviewed by ProPublica present, the emptiness fee for medical doctors on the VA was 13.7% in Could, up from 12% in Could of 2024. Kasperowicz stated these charges are consistent with historic averages for the company. However whereas the emptiness fee decreased over the primary 5 months of 2024, it has risen in 2025.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who has been crucial of Collins’ stewardship, has argued that the VA is heading in a harmful new path. He stated that ProPublica’s findings reinforce his considerations about “damaging and harmful impacts” from cuts and staffing reductions.
“Devoted professionals are fleeing — and recruitment is flagging — due to poisonous work circumstances and draconian funding cuts and firings,” he advised ProPublica. “We’ve warned repeatedly about these outcomes — surprising, however not shocking.”
Within the VA’s Texas area, which covers many of the state, officers reported in an inside presentation in June that roughly 90 folks had turned down job presents “because of the uncertainty of reorganization” and famous that low morale was inflicting present staff to not suggest working on the medical facilities.
Anthony Martinez, a retired Military captain who did excursions of responsibility in Iraq and Afghanistan, stated he has witnessed a downgrade in care on the Temple, Texas, VA facility. He stated that the hospital has misplaced data of his current allergy photographs, which he now has to repeat, and he has to attend longer for appointments.
“Issues have all the time existed however to not this diploma,” Martinez stated.
Martinez, who runs an area nonprofit for veterans, stated he’s heard related frustrations from lots of them. “It’s not simply me. Many vets are having dangerous experiences,” he stated.
Kasperowicz stated the company couldn’t talk about Martinez’s case with no affected person privateness waiver, which Martinez declined to signal. He stated wait occasions for main care appointments for present sufferers at Temple are unchanged over the previous fiscal yr. However inside data present a rise in wait occasions for brand spanking new sufferers in specialties akin to cardiology, gastroenterology and oncology.
Directors there have expressed concern concerning the impression of workers losses, warning of their June inside presentation about “institutional data leaving the Company because of the improve of supervisors departing.”
It isn’t simply the lack of medical doctors and nurses impacting care. Shortages in help workers, who haven’t been shielded from cuts, are additionally including to delays.
In Dayton, Ohio, vacant positions for buying brokers resulted in delays in buying a whole bunch of prosthetics, in response to an inside VA report from Could. Kasperowicz stated the hospital has just lately reduce processing time for such orders by greater than half.
Some services are experiencing hassle hiring and maintaining psychological well being workers.
In February, a human assets official within the VA area protecting a lot of Florida reported in an inside warning system that the realm was having hassle hiring psychological well being professionals to deal with sufferers in rural areas. The roles had beforehand been solely distant however now require suppliers to be on website at a clinic.
When the area supplied jobs to a few psychological well being suppliers, all of them declined. The anticipated impression, in response to the warning doc, was longer delays for appointments. Kasperowicz stated the VA is working to handle the shortages.
But even because the company faces these challenges, the Trump administration has dramatically scaled again the usage of a key instrument designed to assist the VA entice candidates and plug gaps in crucial front-line care.
The VA lately has used incentive funds to assist recruit and maintain medical doctors and different well being care employees. In fiscal 2024, the company paid practically 20,000 staffers retention bonuses and over 6,000 new hires obtained signing bonuses. Within the first 9 months of this fiscal yr, which began Oct. 1, solely about 8,000 VA staff obtained retention bonuses and simply over 1,000 obtained recruitment incentives. The VA has advised lawmakers it has been capable of fill jobs with out utilizing the motivation packages.
Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ailing., stated throughout a congressional oversight listening to in July that the Trump administration is withholding the bonuses as a result of it “needs them to depart” as a part of a plan to denationalise companies.
“It’s not that VA staff are much less meritorious than they had been beneath Biden,” she stated. “They need each worker to be pushed out to allow them to decimate the VA’s workforce.”
Do you will have details about the VA that we should always learn about? Contact reporters David Armstrong on Sign, DavidArmstrong.55, or through electronic mail, david.armstrong@propublica.org; Eric Umansky on Sign, Ericumansky.04, or through electronic mail, eric.umansky@propublica.org; and Vernal Coleman on Sign, vcoleman91.99, or through electronic mail, vernal.coleman@propublica.org.
Joel Jacobs contributed reporting.
