A week after the Trump Administration lifted a misguided freeze on new hires in the federal workforce, U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine (both D-VA) are asking the Secretary of Veterans Affairs for a plan to prioritize filling administrative positions which are key to addressing a shortage of medical professionals who serve in the V-A medical system.
The hiring freeze – which exempted V-A clinical staff but not V-A personnel responsible for recruiting and hiring clinicians – was lifted on April 12th.
Earlier this week, however, officials at the Hampton V-A facility had not received any guidance on addressing significant vacancies in the Hampton V-A medical center’s human resources department, making it extremely difficult to fill the more than 200 open clinical positions at the facility.
“The inability to fill these positions due to the hiring freeze has undoubtedly caused delays for veterans seekingaccess to health care in Hampton Roads and across the Commonwealth,” the senators wrote in a letter to V-A Sec. David Shulkin. “In addition to the challenges V-A has faced in providing health care as a result of the hiring freeze, we also have concerns that veterans seeking benefits have been impacted… Benefits Administration staff have also indicated that the freeze has hindered their ability to process claims in a timely manner.”
Sens. Warner and Kaine asked Sec. Shulkin for baseline data on current job vacancies, information on plans to prioritize hiring in administrative positions, which are crucial to processing benefits and hiring new medical personnel, and what additional authorities or resources the VA needs to fill the vacancies.
Virginia is home to more than 750,000 military veterans and their families, and has one of the fastest growing veterans populations in the country.
Text of the letter follows and can be found here.
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Chris Graham
