Ahead of proposed layoffs across the Department of Veterans Affairs, nurses described facilities already at a breaking point within the agency at a recent congressional briefing.

The briefing ahead of Memorial Day brought together nurses from across the country to lobby lawmakers from the House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committees to help protect care at Veteran Health Administration hospitals and clinics, including the hospital in Aurora. The VA is expected to lay out a plan for layoffs in June that could cut about 80,000 jobs.

While the agency has committed to preserving positions that provide direct healthcare, the nurses said they are already picking up tasks typically delegated to support staff and the workload will intensify with additional layoffs.

A registered nurse at the VA hospital in Aurora and union official, Sharda Fornnarino, said nurses are already picking up tasks, such as flipping beds, that would normally fall to housekeeping.

“We cannot overstate the seriousness of this current situation. Every day VA nurses are asked to do too much, and our facilities are at a breaking point,” she said, at the event organized by the National Nurses Organizing Committee and National Nurses United. She said in her role she is charged with helping 500 patients navigate their dermatology care, in addition to her other duties.

The VA faced a major budget shortfall after COVID that led to the elimination of positions contributing to the current staffing issues, she said. The hiring freeze in January also created confusion that led to the agency not filling positions.

Nurses also pointed to a 2024 inspector general report that found of 139 facilities, all but two had a severe staffing shortage. About 80% of the facilities had a severe nursing shortage. The shortage of nurses and health care workers is also a problem in the private sector. About 100,000 nurses left the industry during 2020 and 2021, while the pandemic was ongoing, according to an analysis in Health Affairs.

Secretary of the VA Doug Collins said in his confirmation testimony that he would not cut care for veterans as he looked for budget cuts.

“Efficiencies can be found everywhere,” he said.

During testimony earlier this month after 100 days on the job, Collins said that while 52,000 positions were added between 2021 and 2024, wait times and backlogs have gone up.

“We cannot continue to do the same things and call it a victory,” he said.

He also said that since the Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act was passed two years ago, nearly 1 million additional veterans have signed up for health care.

In a response to Gazette questions, the VA said it planned to achieve cuts by centralizing administrative functions, such as payroll. The statement also noted that 1,600 nurses were added during the first half of the 2025 fiscal year and saw lower nurse turnover rates during the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years compared to other hospital systems.

At the VA in Colorado, Fornnarino described her work with the 500 dermatology patients as ensuring they are getting the right care and follow-up appointments for conditions such as skincare and chemical wounds. In some cases, elderly patients do not have family to help them manage their care.

“We don’t want our veterans with critical disease to get lost in the system,” she said.

The VA said in response to Gazette questions that it is not uncommon that issues such as patient load would exist, but that the “frequency and intensity of engagement with those patients will vary.”

Fornnarino said she stepped in to help with dermatology patients because a posting for an open nursing position was taken down when the Trump administration hiring freeze was implemented. It was never reposted.

She said clinics focused on neurology and cardiology have also been left with open nursing positions.

Other nurses highlighted how high patient ratios and overtasking can create safety issues.

Estaban Ramirez-Orta, a registered nurse and infection prevention specialist at the VA in Manhattan, said he had seen an instance of two nurses taking care of 20 patients.

“This is simply unacceptable, and puts our veterans care in jeopardy. They deserve better,” he said.

When nurses take care of too many people, patients are more at risk of preventable injuries or illness, he said.

In response to a question about whether nurses are overtasked, the VA said that if nurses have concerns about their workload they should take them to their chain of command.

The House Veterans Affairs Committee Ranking Member Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., attended the briefing and said he believed the Trump administration was deliberately creating chaos ahead of shifting the care that VA provides into the private sector. He was the only lawmaker to speak during the meeting.

Legislation passed under the last Trump administration allowed more veterans to seek care in their communities if they have to drive more than 30 minutes to a VA facility or wait more than 20 days for primary care.

Takano noted that the thousands of VA nurses would likely push back hard against shifting the VA toward more privatized care.

“I certainly would not want to pick a fight against nurses, and I know they will hold their own as we do everything we can to protect VA,” Takano said.

However, he has not found much support among Republicans to help restore collective bargaining rights for the nurses. Those rights were eliminated by presidential executive order, but nurses said they need them to advocate for safe staffing levels.

Contact the writer at mary.shinn@gazette.com or (719) 429-9264.