CT lawmaker condemns VA hospital staffing levels. New report cites state facility

Hartford Courant – Thursday, August 14, 2025
Staff Report

Connecticut’s senior U.S. senator is condemning what he says is “the seismic effect” of staffing cuts at VA health care facilities, basing it on a report that alleges “facility-specific severe occupational staffing shortages” at a Connecticut hospital.

“This report confirms what we’ve warned for months — this Administration is driving dedicated VA employees to the private sector at untenable rates,” said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., ranking member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee. “Staffing shortages at the Department are getting significantly worse, including critical veterans’ health care positions and essential jobs that keep VA facilities running.”

The report, issued by the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General, or OIG, says 28 positions are in the category of, “Facility-Specific Severe Occupational Staffing Shortages VA Connecticut Healthcare System” at the West Haven location.

The report list on West Haven includes nurses, medical officers, a cardiovascular/thoracic surgeon, police, a pharmacist, custodial worker, and others.

“This report makes clear the Trump VA’s self-manufactured attrition crisis is neither strategic or ‘natural.’ In fact, these numbers – recorded in March and April – do not even capture the seismic effect recent attacks by Trump and Collins will have on VA’s workforce, including the stripping of collective bargaining rights from employees and labor representatives who have spoken out against this Administration’s disastrous policies,” Blumenthal said.

“Secretary Collins and President Trump would have you believe there’s ‘nothing to see here.’ Yet this report by an independent body with expertise in VA health care suggests otherwise about this Administration’s unforgivable efforts to privatize and cut VA health care.”

But Pete Kasperowicz, press secretary for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, said in a statement, when asked for a response to the report, “This statutorily required report is not based on actual VA health care facility vacancies and therefore is not a reliable indicator of staffing shortages. The report simply lists occupations facilities feel are difficult for which to recruit and retain, so the results are completely subjective, not standardized and unreliable.”

Instead, Kasperowicz said, the facts show, the “VA’s department-wide vacancy rates for doctors and nurses are 14% and 10%, respectively. These are lower than most other health care systems, in line with normal VA historical averages and much lower than the respective 19% and 20% physician and nurse vacancy rates VA saw at times during the Biden Administration.”

Though Blumenthal did not address wait times, Kasperowicz also said, “VA wait times and backlogs got worse under President Biden and are getting better under President Trump. The backlog of Veterans waiting for VA benefits increased 24% under Biden and is down more than 37% under the second Trump Administration.”

“Average VA health care wait times rose in five of the six main categories under Biden and are down in four of the six major categories under President Trump.”

Blumenthal noted the VA OIG reports annually on Veterans Health Administration occupations with the highest level of staffing shortages and the report this week for “fiscal year 2025 found VHA facilities reported a total of 4,434 severe occupational staffing shortages – a 50 percent increase from fiscal year 2024, and the highest number of VHA staffing shortages reported in years.”

The report notes is it the 12th “in a series on occupational staffing shortages and the 8th to identify severe occupational staffing shortages at the facility level.”

“In fiscal year (FY) 2025, VHA facilities reported a total of 4,434 severe occupational staffing shortages, a 50 percent increase from FY 2024 in which facilities reported 2,959 total shortage occupations,” systemwide, the report says. “Ninety-four percent of facilities reported severe occupational staffing shortages for Medical Officer occupations, and 79 percent of facilities reported severe shortages for Nurse occupations.”

In FY 2025 systemwide, the report says, 41 occupations were “identified as severe staffing shortages by at least 20 percent of VHA facilities, excluding the Medical Officer and Nurse OPM occupational series (see appendix E for the list of occupations reported by at least 20 percent of VHA facilities).This represents the highest number of occupations reported by at least 20 percent of facilities across FYs 2018-2025.”

All 139 VHA facilities identified staffing shortages, according to the report..

“Psychology was the most frequently reported severe clinical occupational staffing shortage and also the most frequently reported Hybrid Title 38 severe shortage occupation, with 57 percent of facilities reporting it as a shortage,” the report says, “Police was reported as a shortage by 58 percent of facilities making it the most frequently reported severe nonclinical occupational staffing shortage and the most frequently reported of all occupations.”

The OIG office notes it deployed a questionnaire to “VHA-identified facility points of contact to determine severe occupational staffing shortages at each facility” and noted that it doesn’t verify responses.

The OIG “deployed questionnaires to 139 VHA facilities to determine the occupations designated as severe shortages To determine the magnitude of severe occupational staffing shortages at VHA, the OIG counted the total number of times an occupation was identified as a shortage. The OIG also compared FYs 2018–2025 questionnaire responses to evaluate changes in severe occupational staffing shortages across VHA,” the report says.

The OIG report says it didn’t make recommendations “but emphasizes the importance of VHA’s continued assessment of severe occupational staffing shortages given the increase in shortages reported from FY 2024 to FY 2025.”

Blumenthal and U.S. Sen. Angus King in June called on the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General to launch an investigation into the Trump Administration’s ongoing cancellation of VA contracts.

Speaking at a roundtable in Meriden in April, Blumenthal warned that the impacts would be felt.

“I don’t want to sugarcoat it. The VA, in Connecticut, so far as I can tell, is still functioning at a very high level. There is a lot of fear about what the impacts are going to be, of the freezes on funding and hiring, the cuts in resources,” Blumenthal said at the roundtable.

Blumenthal referenced the 80,000 federal cuts with more than 25 percent of those employees being veterans.

“I’m very worried about what the impacts will be,” Blumenthal said at the roundtable.

Also in June, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs touted a record more than 2 million disability benefits claims for Veterans in fiscal year 2025.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs also said at that time that it reduced the inventory of backlogged disability claims by more than 74,000 under the Trump Administration. The VA added that the claim process from Jan. 20 to June 21 fell from 141.5 to 131.8.

Kasperowicz also noted, “VA benefits and services are expanding and improving during the second Trump Administration.”

He cited, (and presented here as shared by the VA):

The backlog of Veterans waiting for VA benefits increased 24% under Biden and is down more than 37% under the second Trump Administration.

VA has opened 16 new health care clinics around the country.

Since Jan. 20, VA has offered Veterans nearly 1 million appointments outside of normal operating hours. These early-morning, evening, and weekend appointments are giving Veterans more timely and convenient options for care.

VA is spending an additional $800 million on infrastructure improvements to ensure VA facilities provide safe and effective patient care.

VA has made it easier and faster for VA-enrolled Veterans to access care from non VA providers at the department’s expense.

VA has implemented major reforms to make it easier for survivors to get benefits, after serious problems during the Biden Administration.

VA is accelerating the deployment of its integrated electronic health record system, after the program was nearly dormant for almost two years under the Biden Administration.

VA partnered with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to identify and recover $106 million in duplicate billing.

VA is processing record numbers of disability claims, reaching 1 million claims processed for FY25 on Feb. 20 and reaching 2 million claims by June — both achievements were done in record time.

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