For Colorado ICU nurse Jordan LeBlanc, working at the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center has been a rewarding experience because of his daily interaction with the veteran population.  

“What could be greater than our veterans. They’re funny. They’re kind. They’re forgiving. They think that we know best, even when we don’t, but most of all they trust us,” said LeBlanc.

It is that trust that nurses say they are pushing to protect, in the wake of what they say has been an ongoing hiring freeze from nationwide budget cuts to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

“We have 57 open vacancies that are frontline,” said Sharda Fornnarino, who is the director of the local National Nurses United at the Rocky Mountain Regional VA. “That basically entails the ICU, med surge, the OR, some of our surgical areas as far as the outpatient surgeries, SCI and our mental health area.”

On Thursday, nurses from the medical center rallied across the street from the building in Aurora to raise awareness about their existing staffing shortages and the challenges they have faced being able to serve the veteran population because of this shortage.

LeBlanc says often nurses like him now have to take on a greater patient workload and sometimes work more hours to do so.

“Our ICU specifically has been staffed at less than 85% of its functional capacity,” he said. “Right now, we’re at 18 bed ICU that only 12 of the beds are open. They’ve closed six beds because of staffing levels.”

Nurses say the staffing challenges does not just affect their morale, but it can also compromise the relationship they have with each patient.

“Any veteran or any patient within our system will get less than they deserve, less than the total dignity that each individual really deserves to be provided,” he said.

VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes responded to nurses rallying across the country, saying there is no freeze on hiring nurses and they are continuing to hire nurses needed across the country. Hayes’s complete statement is as follows:

VA’s top priority is providing the world-class care that Veterans deserve, and we are committed to making sure we have nursing staff we need to deliver the soonest and best care to Veterans.
There is no nationwide hiring freeze on VA nurses, and we are continuing to hire nurses, as needed, across the country to ensure that we can deliver world-class care to Veterans. Over the past 3 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 VA. VA is also retaining our great nurses, with turnover rates currently at 3.4% – far outperforming the private sector. There are also locations where we need to continue hiring nurses, and we are doing that – as demonstrated by the below hiring numbers.
Partly as a result of these hiring efforts and our great nurses, VA is currently delivering more care to more Veterans than ever before, outperforming non-VA care, and Veterans trust VA care at all-time record rates.

The VA’s office went on to share statistics on what they say have been all time high rates of veteran trust in VA care and decreasing wait times. However, Fornnarino says any hiring has been to fill strategic positions, where in reality all vacancies need to be filled.

“I haven’t seen more of those hires come to the bed side,” she said.

Nurses also worry the VA will become more privatized if staffing needs are not met.

“When we don’t have the staffing, we have these beds shut down,” said leBlanc. “That means that our veterans go to community care, and they’re not set up to provide veteran served ethical care.”