Nurses wearing red T-shirts marched outside the central office of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington on Thursday, June 6, 2024. The nurses said they were protesting chronic staffing vacancies at VA hospitals and clinics that include a shortage of 13,000 nurses. (Linda F. Hersey/Stars and Stripes)
WASHINGTON — Shouting “VA cuts have got to go,” dozens of nurses on Thursday afternoon marched outside the Department of Veterans Affairs headquarters to protest chronic job shortages at veterans hospitals and clinics across the United States.
Citing 66,000 job vacancies nationwide at VA health care facilities — including 13,000 for registered nurses — the VA nurses rallied for two hours at the agency’s central offices in Washington. The nurses claim the VA is intentionally not filling positions to keep costs down.
The protesters, who arrived aboard a private bus, wore red T-shirts and said they represented VA facilities from across the U.S., including California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois and New York.
“We do not have enough nurses to do the job, and the VA is not hiring,” said Tom Bewick, an intensive care unit nurse at the Albany Stratton VA Medical Center in New York.
Bewick, who has worked for the VA for 20 years, was one of the organizers of Thursday’s rally.
“We do not have enough nurses to do the job, and the VA is not hiring,” said Tom Bewick, an intensive care unit nurse at the Albany Stratton VA Medical Center in New York. Bewick, who has worked for the VA for 20 years, was one of the organizers of the rally in Washington on Thursday, June 6, 2024, by VA nurses who were protesting chronic staffing shortages at VA hospitals and clinics. (Linda F. Hersey/Stars and Stripes)
A former Army nurse from 2004-2010, Bewick said he spent a year on active duty at Fort Sill, Okla., and then served as a reservist in New York.
He and other union leaders at the rally claimed the VA is keeping jobs open but will not acknowledge that there is a hiring freeze.
“There is no nationwide hiring freeze on VA nurses,” Terrence Hayes, the VA press secretary, said Thursday. “Over the past three years, VA has aggressively hired nurses nationwide — increasing our nursing workforce by 14,000 nurses to a total of 122,000 nurses, the largest nursing workforce in the country and in the history of VA.”
Hayes also said the turnover of VA nurses is 3.4%, which outperforms the private sector.
The American Hospital Association and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing has reported a nationwide shortage of nurses.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects more than 275,000 additional nurses will be needed in the workforce through 2030, as many nurses near retirement age and thousands of others left the workforce during the coronavirus pandemic.
In Albany, Bewick said the VA medical center recently posted two jobs to fill vacancies for night-shift nurses that were later taken down without explanation.
He said the openings resulted in nurses rotating out of other units to meet the immediate need, which is not in the best interest of patients.
The rally in Washington was organized by the National Nurses Organizing Committee of National Nurses United, a national labor union with 225,000 members.
Union members said they want to raise awareness about critical shortages of health care workers across the VA health system because it is putting patient safety at risk.
The nurse’s union pointed to a 2023 inspector general’s report that found 92% of VA hospitals and clinics were experiencing severe nursing shortages.
Nurses from veterans hospitals and clinics operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs protested chronic staffing shortages in Washington on Thursday, June 6, 2024. The nurses who picketed were from VA facilities across the U.S., including California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia and New York. (Linda F. Hersey/Stars and Stripes)
Members also said they wanted to raise concerns about VA funding going to private health care of veterans since passage of the 2018 MISSION Act. The law enables veterans to obtain non-VA care in their communities when the service is unavailable in a timely manner at a VA hospital or clinic.
Monica Coleman, a nurse from the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in Chicago, said she is noticing an uptick in referrals for veterans to get their health care from the private sector.
Coleman works in an office at the health care center that manages referrals to community care providers. She said the referrals most often are due to staffing shortages at VA hospitals and clinics.
“Hospitals are chronically understaffed, while billions of dollars from the VA are going to the private sector,” Coleman said. “The VA needs to reinvest in itself, including hiring in critical areas.”
Jordan Le Blanc, a nurse in the intensive care unit at Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center in Aurora, Colo., also was among the protesters.
She said a shortage of critical care nurses at her hospital means one nurse is assigned to three patients in the intensive care unit with the help of an assistant, when the standard is to have one or two patients.
Le Blanc said the VA determined in December that an additional 57 nurses were needed at the hospital where she works to meet staffing requirements.
“The staffing crisis has forced us to cut the number of ICU beds from 18 to 12, which means the veterans are diverted to other hospitals,” she said.
A shortage of nurses at the VA New York Harbor Health Care in New York City resulted recently in two nurses caring for 15 patients on a medical-surgical unit, the union said.
In Tampa, Fla., ICU nurse Justin Wooden said the nursing shortage at James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital has led administrators to pull nurses out of the intensive care unit to work in other areas of the hospital as need arises.
“Too often nurses are being asked to work in units where they lack the specialized knowledge, experience and skills to provide optimal care to that specialized patient population,” Wooden said.
