The firings are part of an effort by President Donald Trump and his top advisor, multibillionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, to radically shrink the size of the federal workforce.
Cybele Mayes-OstermanUSA TODAY
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- "I'm here to tell you the truth," VA Secretary Doug Collins said. "We're not cutting healthcare, we're not cutting benefits."
- VA employees and elected officials say critical staff, including healthcare personnel assigned to the Veterans Crisis Line, were fired.
- The VA is suffering from a 'severe' shortage of healthcare staff, according to a 2024 inspector general's report.
WASHINGTON − The Department of Veterans Affairs has scrambled to reinstate some fired healthcare workers as new hires turn to other work out of fear they could be next to go in a future purge, elected officials and VA staffers said.
More than 1,000 VA employees were fired amid the sweeping layoffs of federal workers across the government, the department announced last week. Those fired included probationary employees – with two years or less on the job, depending on the position.
The firings are part of an effort by President Donald Trump and his top advisor, multibillionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, to radically shrink the size of the federal workforce. The abrupt firings have roiled the government and outraged critics who say workers in areas including nuclear security, forest fire prevention and bird flu response have been culled without warning.
This week, Democratic lawmakers said, at least two workers out of around a dozen fired from the Veterans Crisis Line, a suicide prevention hotline for veterans, were reinstated after the lawmakers intervened.
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VA Secretary Doug Collins took to social media to dispel what he called the "whopper" that critical services would be cut.
"I'm here to tell you the truth," he said. "We're not cutting healthcare, we're not cutting benefits."
"Veteran care, benefits and beneficiaries will not be affected by VA’s personnel moves, which will allow us to redirect $98 million per year back toward health care, benefits and services for VA beneficiaries," a VA spokesperson said in an email to USA TODAY. VA leaders can request that employees be exempted from "probationary removal," and "more than 300,000 essential positions" were exempt from a Trump administration hiring freeze, the spokesperson said.
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'Unnecessary stress'
But Democratic lawmakers and VA healthcare workers say the cuts and their impact on morale will affect VA care.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said the firings endangered the health of veterans and threatens to delay benefits, including those under the 2024 PACT Act that expanded health care and other benefits to vets exposed to burn pits and Agent Orange.
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“It's a mess because it's having an effect on suicide prevention, mammograms, cardiology, a range of services, including benefits under the PACT Act,” said Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee. “We're putting pressure on the secretary of the VA to take some action to rescind the layoffs.”
One VA healthcare employee who works with high-risk veterans said some probationary employees on their team were fired last week before they were reinstated within a week. "The emotional distress that this is putting on veterans who are working to save lives is appalling," the employee, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation, told USA TODAY.
Veterans in this worker's care are scared they will lose services, they said. "What we're doing is causing an unnecessary stress for the highest risk population." The employee said resignations among VA coworkers were "not uncommon."
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The employee said they'd received an email ordering all staff back to the office as part of the Trump administration's directive to end telework for all federal employees.
But forcing providers long accustomed to working from home into disorganized, crowded spaces deprived the veterans they treat of privacy, the worker said.
Employees who didn't comply were threatened with harsh punishments including firing, they said. VA workers have also been warned that they would suffer "adverse consequences" for trying to disguise diversity programs or for using DEI-related language after Trump's blanket ban of DEI initiatives.
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The Trump administration has signaled that federal jobs related to national security and veterans' issues would not be subject to firings by Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. In some cases, like at the National Nuclear Security Agency, sweeping layoffs of federal workers with national security-related roles were rescinded days after they hit inboxes.
Musk appeared onstage at the Conservative Political Action Committee conference outside Washington, DC, on Thursday weilding a chainsaw to symbolize his intent to clear-cut what he describes as waste from the federal government.
Collins has suggested the department could go even further. "We're going to look for every efficiency," he told NewsNation in a Friday interview. "We're just getting started."
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'Severe' VA medical staff shortages
A congressional aide familiar with the issue, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the issue in more detail, said their office had been in contact with recently hired VA employees who had their offers rescinded amid the federal hiring freeze.
Many were turning away from the VA towards higher-paid private sector jobs, fearing they would be laid off in a future wave of cuts.
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Government watchdogs have documented critically low staffing levels at VA healthcare facilities for at least a decade. Of 139 veterans' health facilities surveyed last year, only two were free of "severe occupational staffing shortages," according to an inspector general report. Medical officers and nurses have been in "severe shortage" since 2014, the report said.
"No one wants to work for the VA if they're treated like this," said Jake Pannell, a business representative for the National Federation of Federal Employees, which represents more than 110,000 people.
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Although clinical staff were meant to be exempted from the cuts, Pannell said, people in positions that provide critical support to veterans' healthcare providers, like administrative assistants and program analysts, were among those terminated.
"If you don't give providers the tools or support or the staffing to do so, you're not going to be able to provide veteran care," he said.
Suicide prevention workers fired
One front-facing example is the Veterans' Crisis Line, an around-the-clock support hotline for veterans and their families. The crisis line maintains 1,100 responders stationed throughout three call centers, according to its website.
Collins also said reports that Crisis Line employees were fired were "just wrong," and a VA spokesperson said, "No Veterans Crisis Line responders have been laid off."
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But Blumenthal and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, another Democratic member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, said some were caught up in the purge. A Veterans Crisis Line employee, speaking on condition of anonymity, also confirmed some of their coworkers were laid off and then reinstated.
“They were fired and the consequences have been really disastrous,” Blumenthal said. Veterans now face delays in speaking to counselors answering crisis calls, he said.
Duckworth said her staff had personally spoken with Crisis Line employees who were fired – around a dozen, according to her office.
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After Duckworth inquired on their behalf, at least two of those workers were told that they were being reinstated, although they had yet to regain access to the system as of Wednesday morning, she told reporters.
"Why were these jobs ever even threatened in the first place? These are jobs in service of our veterans, and some of them are the ones who are most in crisis," Duckworth said.
Suicide rates for veterans remain much higher than the American population. After a decline in 2020, they began to climb again in recent years, with 6,407 veteran suicides in 2022.
Contributing: Tom Vanden Brook
