June 2023
Nurses From Short-Staffed VA Facilities Join Protests Over Working Conditions
Staffing shortages are nothing new for the Veterans Health Administration (VA).
A report from the VA Office of Inspector General, for example, found VA facilities reporting 2,622 “severe” occupational staffing shortages across 285 occupations for fiscal year 2022.
That same report saw more than 90% of VA facilities reporting severe staffing shortages for nurses. VA nurses are demanding that the working environment improve across their shorthanded facilities.
Nurses from VA hospitals in California and Georgia recently participated in nationwide demonstrations “to protest conditions the claim overburden medical personnel and compromise patient care,” as Military Times reported.
According to Military Times, caregivers from the Jennifer Moreno VA Medical Center in San Diego, and the Atlanta VA Medical Center, convened with nurses from 16 other hospitals across the country in June, joining forces at a rally organized by National Nurses United (NNU), the country’s largest union of registered nurses.
Erin McLeod, a nurse from the VA’s San Diego facility and an NNU local director, summarized the dilemma that she and her professional peers face.
“If we’re paid less, and we have less support staff, and we’re not following a nurse-to-patient ratio like other hospitals, it makes it hard to hire and keep good nurses here,” McLeod told Military Times, estimating that the San Diego VA hospital’s team has been operating at 80% of total capacity for several years.
“We want to serve those who have served and give them the best care we can, but it’s hard when our hands are constantly being tied.”
Serious Staffing Challenges
The VA has prioritized recruiting, hiring and retaining nurses in an effort to address these significant shortages, according to an agency spokesperson, who told Military Times that the VA “advocated strongly” for the PACT Act and RAISE Act, which increased pay for more than 10,000 VA nurses nationwide.
“We have also maximized bonuses and retention incentives to reward VA nurses for their excellent work, and keep them at VA, where they belong,” the VA spokesperson told the publication, adding that the VA has hired nearly 7,000 registered nurses, 1,413 licensed practical nurses and licensed vocational nurses, and more than 2,000 nursing assistants between October 2022 and May 2023. Those figures represent “more hires in these three critical occupations than at any time in the past 20 years,” according to the same spokesperson.
Still, the organization’s nurses feel that much more needs to be done to rectify the serious staffing challenges within the VA system.
Teshara Felder-Livingston, a nurse at the VA complex in Atlanta and an NNU shop steward, told Military Times that she recollects few days when she and her nursing team haven’t struggled to meet caregiving demands since she came to the Atlanta facility in 2017.
“We do not have the correct staff mix to safely care for patients; it’s just not there,” she said. “We would need at least 20 or 30 more nurses to be able to do the things we’re being asked to do. Not having staff readily available for the patients is the biggest safety risk you can have at a hospital.”
28 June 2023
Category
HR News Article