In 2023, the Biden administration hired some 60,000 employees at the VA to deliver benefits from the PACT Act. (Adobe Stock)
Advocates warned President Donald Trump’s cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs are affecting wait times at VA clinics across the Commonwealth and country.
Some 700,000 Virginians are veterans, and thousands more work at VA facilities across the Commonwealth. The VA is on track to lose 30,000 employees by the end of the month through attrition, just a third of the originally planned cuts. The cuts are a reversal of the VA’s hiring spree in the Biden era, with more than 60,000 employees joining the agency, mainly in an effort to ramp up care following the passage of the PACT Act.
Marc Harris, a retired Army colonel, said cuts can only go so far before affecting care for veterans.
“At the hospital, you can only do so much with limited resources,” Harris pointed out. “You can’t continue to do more with less. Eventually, you just get less with less. So that’s one of the things they aren’t taking into account.”
Trump administration officials have defended cuts to the VA, arguing the agency needed overhauls to address efficiency issues and wait times. But in the year after the 2023 hiring effort, the agency saw wait times decline by 11%.
A report by the VA’s Inspector General found nearly all VA health centers report a severe staffing shortage in at least one care area. The areas with the largest shortage were nursing and psychology services. Harris explained it is not just an issue of health care, but national security. If the quality of care declines, he argued it could deter people from enlisting in the first place.
“When you have a veteran’s administration that can’t take care of its veterans, then you can’t use that as a recruiting tool,” Harris emphasized. “People won’t want to join if they already understand going in, you can’t keep the promise of taking care of me when I get out if I get injured.”
The Commonwealth is home to major VA medical centers in Richmond, Hampton and Salem.
Related: VA federal hiring freeze is leaving veterans waiting for care
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