‘Sense of doom’: Morale plunges as some VA health workers fear worsening shortages, staffing cuts
- ROBERT B FRIERSON
- Jul 3
- 4 min read
By Brian Todd, CNN
10 minute read
Published 6:00 AM EDT, Tue July 1, 2025
WashingtonCNN —
In her 34 years working as a nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Georgia, Irma Westmoreland has seen it all — from patients exposed to Agent Orange to traumatic brain injuries and amputations suffered in combat.
But now, it is the turmoil at the Department of Veterans Affairs that is leaving her shaken. “It is very jarring,” she told CNN. “The nurses, they’re afraid.”
Morale among doctors and nurses at Veterans Affairs hospitals has plunged, according to more than a dozen medical professionals at hospitals across the country as well as union officials who spoke to CNN.
They are worried about support staff being laid off after President Donald Trump took office in January despite an already strained medical system with staffing shortages, hiring freezes and attrition. And they are worried about the VA’s goal — on hold for now — to reduce its 470,000-person workforce by some 15%.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins has vowed that doctors and nurses will be exempt from any layoff plans.
But some staff who handle administration, billing, and running facilities have already left, leaving doctors and nurses to do those jobs on top of practicing medicine. “As they lay off support staff, like our dietary staff, our housekeeping staff and the staff that support us, then we’re going to be having to take on those jobs,” Westmoreland, who is also a top nurses union representative, said. “That means our patients are going to have to wait longer for the treatment and care that they deserve and they need, and that’s our concern.” Peter Kasperowicz, a spokesman for the VA, said many staff members who had been laid off have been asked back, and the “vast majority” have returned. However, frontline workers who spoke to CNN say they have only felt the decline in staffing, and fear more to come. They say supplies have gone unordered, appointments go unscheduled, and medical staff fear that these conditions might not only encourage doctors and nurses now working in the over-strained system to quit, but dry up the pipeline for future talent to care for the country’s veterans. “I joined the VA for stability,” one doctor said. “But why would anyone want to come here?”
Cuts planned
First created by executive order in 1930, the Department of Veteran Affairs has gone through many iterations.
Today, the Cabinet-level agency serves some 9 million US veterans per year, assisting them with everything from interment at military cemeteries to all aspects of their healthcare.
Its hospitals, outpatient centers, and affiliated medical services number over a thousand, making them one of largest health systems in the country. Hospital and medical services accounted for 42% of the VA’s $302 billion spending in 2023, according to the Peterson Institute, an economics think tank.
As President Donald Trump took office in January, plans for cuts to the VA quickly emerged as part of the new administration’s broad promises to dramatically reduce the size of government.
Asked about its plans under the Trump administration, Kasperowicz said: “The fact is that during the Biden Administration, VA failed to address nearly all of its most serious problems, such as benefits backlogs and rising health care wait times.”
“Under President Trump and Secretary Collins, VA is fixing these and other serious problems,” he continued. “We owe it to America’s Veterans to take a close look at how VA is currently functioning and whether current policies are leading to the best outcomes for Veterans.”
He disputed that there were morale issues among VA health professionals and blamed the media for “fear mongering.”
Almost no federal agency has been spared from the slashes, but with a target of laying off some 70,000 people, the VA cuts would be among the more dramatic. Sources at the agency and on Capitol Hill previously told CNN the first significant round of layoffs was planned to begin this month, with a second round planned to begin in September.
This comes as VA hospitals were already facing critical shortages, with over 80% of VA hospitals reporting doctor and nursing shortages in the 2024 fiscal year that was then compounded by limits to hiring introduced last year under the Biden administration.
Over the years, there have been numerous bipartisan criticisms of, and calls to reform, the agency. Its spending, bureaucracy, quality and ability to provide services have all faced scrutiny over the years and across administrations.
Collins, the VA secretary, has argued he is trying to improve the system by cutting bureaucracy and standardizing practices, leading to better care for veterans.
Kasperowicz told CNN that since Trump took office, the agency has reduced disabilities claims backlogs, opened 13 new clinics, and accelerated integrating an electronic records system, among other successes.
“VA is undergoing a holistic review centered on reducing bureaucracy and improving services to Veterans,” he said. “The goal is to implement a reduction in force (RIF) that could affect as much as 15% of VA’s workforce, or about 70,000 people. But those reductions have not happened yet,” he said. “As we reform VA, we are guided by the fact that the Biden Administration added tens of thousands of new VA employees and tens of billions in additional VA spending, and the department’s performance got worse.”
However, plans for potential layoffs drew alarm from both sides of the aisle. Republicans questioned the wisdom of the targeted numbers, and some Democrats pointed out that the plans come even as there is a current shortage of hospital staff.
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