Sen. Tim Kaine and Rep. Bobby Scott said the new Battlefield Outpatient Clinic in Chesapeake has hired fewer than 200 of the more than 550 staff members needed for the new clinic.
The two congressmen toured the facility, scheduled to open April 10, on Wednesday.
VA secretary Doug Collins rolled out a plan to fire up to 83,000 VA employees. He said staff cuts will not impact patient care.
Like most of the federal government, the VA is also under a hiring freeze. Though 300,000 positions have been exempted, roughly a dozen probationary workers were fired from the Hampton VA system. A federal judge has ordered them reinstated while the case is pending.
“Even some of the probationary employees that got fired, they've been told they can come back and get back pay, but they have to be on administrative leave, not serving veterans,” Kaine said.
Kaine said the cuts will impact wait times.
“That's a staffing issue,” Kaine said. “You make it harder to hire people, and announce you're going to cut 80,000 people, you're just guaranteeing that that problem of the waiting times gets longer. And that's a direct impact on patient care.”
Chesapeake has one of the fastest growing veteran populations in the country. The new facility will have primary care and mental health providers, but not dental care and other services that were part of the original plan for the clinic.
On Wednesday, Kaine and Scott were told not to talk to reporters on the grounds of the clinic, so they spoke from the sidewalk after their private tour.
Some of the staff originally planned for the Chesapeake VA before the freeze were told the position could not be filled, Scott said.
“They had identified people, and then they were told that they couldn't hire anybody, so they had to call them back,” Scott said.
Candidates have since turned down the VA when the hospital system tried again to hire them, he said.
