Members of the nation's largest union of registered nurses are calling on the Department of Veterans Affairs to lift a so-called hiring freeze they say is creating patient safety risks at hospitals across the country.
The National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United — which represents more than 15,000 nurse at 23 Veterans Health Administration facilities across the country — claims the VA is refraining from filling nursing positions and has rescinded job offers, pointing to VA data it said shows there were 13,000 vacant nursing positions across the VA system as of mid-March. Overall, there were 66,000 vacancies.
The lack of nurse staffing has been most acutely felt in the VA's intensive care and medical-surgical units, nurses said in a June 3 news release. They plan to hold a picket and rally over the matter June 6 at the Department of Veterans Affairs headquarters in Washington, D.C.
"Last December, the VA determined that 57 additional nurses were needed in order to meet the VA's own safe staff rquirements," Jordan Le Blanc, BSN, RN, an ICU nurse at Aurora, Colo.-based Rocky Mountain Regional Medical Center, said in a statement. "Because these positions were never posted nor filled, the VA is now using a crisis nursing model where one ICU nurse cares for three patients with the help of a nursing assistant or a nurse without ICU experience or knowledge. This crisis model means nurses are unable to provide the optimal time, care, and dignity to each of these critically ill patients," and has led the hospital to cut the number of ICU beds from 18 to 12, the nurse said.
The VA refutes claims that it has a nurse hiring freeze in place. As of April, the VA had higher total numbers of nursing assistants, licensed nurse practitioners and registered nurses compared to 2023, according to data a spokesperson shared with Becker's.
"Over the past three years, VA has aggressively hired nurses nationwide — increasing our nursing workforce by 14,000 nurses to a total of 122,000 nurses, the largest nursing workforce in the country and in the history of the VA," Terrance Hayes, press secretary at the VA, said in a statement shared with Becker's. "VA is also retaining our great nurses, with turnover rates currently at 3.4% — far outperforming the private sector."
Mr. Hayes said the VA "appreciates" its partnership with NNU and that the organization will "continue to work with them directly to resolve their concerns."