Veterans Affairs nurses protest potential staffing cuts by Trump

Jesse Brown VA nurse Adelena Marshall thinks of all the veterans who might lose speedy healthcare if the Trump administration carries out its plan to cut 80,000 employees from the Department of Veteran Affairs.

VA hospitals across the country are already understaffed, according to a recent VA inspector general's report. Further cuts to the agency could be a matter of life and death, she said.

"Our veterans can walk into our clinics and come and get care anytime," Marshall said. "But if they go into private sector [and do not get immediate care] some of them may die. Some of them may commit suicide."

Marshall joined several dozen nurses Friday outside the Jesse Brown VA on the Near West Side to protest the cuts threatened by the Trump administration. Organized by their union, National Nurses United, the nurses held signs reading "Veterans need care not cuts" and "Protect federal workers. Protect VA nurses."

They are among the latest federal employees to be targeted by staffing reductions directed by the Trump administration. The new presidential administration has sought to decrease staffing at many federal programs, ranging from the postal service to the U.S. Agency for International Development.

VA employees got the first hint of impending staffing cuts in early March, when the Associated Press obtained a leaked department memo telling officials to prepare to cut more than 80,000 employees. In the memo, the VA’s chief of staff, Christopher Syrek, told officials to return to 2019 staffing levels of just under 400,000.

That would require firing tens of thousands of employees after the VA expanded under the Biden administration. The VA last year experienced its highest-ever service levels, reaching over 9 million enrollees. The memo called for an agency-wide reorganization in August.

“Things need to change,” Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins said in a video posted on social media after the memo leaked, according to the Associated Press. Collins said the layoffs would not mean cuts to veterans’ health care or benefits.

More than 25% of the VA’s workforce is comprised of veterans.

U.S. Rep. Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, with a loudspeaker at the rally, said, "It is a shameful time in our history that a president would dare to take this step."

Veteran Tim Brutsman told attendees that the VA once saved a fellow marine from committing suicide. The marine called one day as Brutsman was training. "He tells me he's going to kill himself — not some day — right then," he recalled.

Brutsman drove immediately to the Marine's home and convinced him to go to a VA hospital for a psych evaluation.

"Because of VA places like this, they know what to do, and they saved his life," he said.

A cut to staffing could make it harder for Marines like his friend to receive prompt care from VA staff, he said.

"They're on the chopping block, not because they fail — because they succeeded, because this system works," he said. "And that's a threat to the people trying to tear it down and sell it off."