Mildred Manning-Joy waited 45 minutes for her prescription to be filled at the Veterans Affairs Durham Health Care Facility.
She watched as a single person worked to take orders, fill prescriptions and service the window.
“That’s way too much to ask of anyone,” Manning-Joy said.
And as the line behind her continued to grow, she worried about the people who didn’t have the time to wait.
Manning-Joy isn’t just a patient at the Durham VA. She’s a nurse of 25 years, who works at the facility and is a member of National Nurses United, the largest union of registered nurses in the country.
On Tuesday, she joined a group of NNU members and Rep. Mark Takano, a Democrat from California, for a briefing held over Zoom, to discuss the impact of the Trump administration on VA health care.
Among the chief concerns noted in Tuesday’s calls was an executive order signed by President Donald Trump preventing the collective bargaining rights of federal workers, a federal hiring freeze and proposed cuts by Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins to reduce the VA workforce by 70,000 to 80,000 people.
The Trump administration wants to cut 15% of the Veterans Affairs work staff to bring it back down to what it was in 2019, before COVID and the PACT Act took effect. The PACT Act is a law that provides veterans care after exposure to toxic chemicals, including those at Fort Bragg, who used the base’s unsafe drinking waters.
Earlier this month, Collins got into a heated discussion at a Senate hearing with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, about the cuts. Collins claimed Blumenthal was trying to stir fear among veterans, and he defended the VA cuts, saying that health care remained a priority.
Meanwhile, Takano introduced a bill this month, with 81 cosponsors, that would give VA workers back their collective bargaining rights. None of North Carolina’s delegation has signed onto the bill.
“They don’t want workers to organize,” Takano said, of the executive order. “They know that there is strength in numbers, and they know that there is strength in unions. I know firsthand the power of unions, having been a member of one for many years myself. The whole idea is to either make working for VA so miserable that everyone quits, or to take away their grievance rights so they can fire dissidents without cause.”
Concerns for veterans
Monica Giles, a nurse from Alabama, said nurses aren’t the only ones being silenced. Veterans are, too.
“We took an oath to take care of those who serve in our nation’s military, and for their families, caregivers and survivors, and that is being stripped away with the stroke of a pen,” Giles said. “But nurses aren’t going anywhere, because we are afraid for our patients. We know if we leave our patients, they’ll suffer.”
Concerns for their patients took up the majority of the call.
There was already a worker shortage due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and now with a hiring freeze and job cuts through attrition, workers are trying to fill in gaps.
They talked about leaving patients for a half-hour to fill prescriptions or not having enough mental health care providers.
“Decades of scientific research show that when our RNs are forced to care for too many patients at one time, patients are at high risk of preventable medical errors, avoidable complications, falls and injuries, increased length of hospital stay and even death,” said Andrea Johnson, a nurse from San Diego, who spoke on the call.
Patients also fear losing health care teams they spent years building to treat their needs.
“I ask each and every one of you to think about who ultimately is going to be impacted by the cuts of the VA: the veterans,” Giles said. “They don’t deserve to be stripped of the care they earned and have been promised.”
Manning-Joy comes from a multigenerational military family and knows firsthand the importance of the specialized care veterans receive at VA facilities. That includes one-on-one time with providers as well as doctors and nurses who understand what veterans have gone through to leading technologies like prosthetics.
And she said it was becoming a nurse for the VA that helped her understand why she loved her career so much.
“After just a few years working in the VA, I knew I could never go anywhere else,” Manning-Joy said. “My coworkers and I have a deep love for our work and we want this to be the best place possible for our veteran patients.”
That’s why when she sees problems, she brings them up. She said her coworkers do as well.
“We are advocates for our patients, and that is why it is so important to us to have our protective rights to organize and bargain,” Manning-Joy said. “There are times when we report things that don’t get addressed. That’s when we come together and collectively take action to protect our patients.”
But she said over the past few months, more issues are going unaddressed.
“The hiring freeze and the firing of probationary employees have led to really severe staffing issues in our facility, and VA Secretary Doug Collins has now put forward a plan that could cut VA staff by 83,000,” Manning-Joy said. “We have to get out in front of this. Any further cuts will lead to an unimaginable staffing crisis that will lead to worsening patients’ outcomes.”
Manning-Joy called Collins’ plans to cut staffing “really scary” and “unfair to our veteran patients.”
“Veterans rely on the VA to get specialized care that comes with serving in the military,” Manning-Joy said. “Our nurses are trained to have the experience to manage diverse needs of the population and these cuts will ultimately harm veterans. Fighting for our VA must be a top priority.”
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