A Department of Veterans Affairs Inspector General found the Hampton VA healthcare system is struggling to keep up with a 7% increase in patient load and adjust to new leadership.
New medical facilities are supposed to help deal with some of those problems.
Veterans are assigned to a team of providers in the VA healthcare system. Inspectors were told that primary care teams at Hampton struggled to keep the number of veterans assigned to each team down to 110% of the level the VA recommends.
Despite a spike in new patients after the PACT Act, primary care providers at the Hampton VA were bringing down the wait time to see a doctor by volunteering to work overtime on weekends, according to the report.
Doctors told the investigators that “heavy workload caused burnout and fatigue, although they expressed optimism that when they open the two new clinics and add more teams, it would help,” according to the report.
The Chesapeake VA Clinic is the first facility scheduled to open. Inspectors were told the North Battlefield clinic was scheduled to begin seeing patients with 20 primary patient care teams, according to the report.
Recently, VA Secretary Doug Collins said the clinic will now open to patients April 17 with only 10 primary care teams and will not be at full staff until January 2026.
“I know the Secretary's message is that's an appropriate staging of opening up a clinic, and that may be,” said Dr. Julie Kroviak, Principal Deputy Assistant Inspector General for Healthcare Inspections. “But we too are very curious to understand where those cuts are going to be. We have never written a report that suggested they were over staffed in any way.”
At least a dozen probationary workers were cut from Hampton under the Department of Government Efficiency recommendations. The VA is also looking at cutting another 82,000 staffers at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The Trump administration removed the heads of the Inspector General's offices for several federal agencies, including the VA, though the staff remains in place at the VA. Kroviak said her office has not been involved where cuts are being considered throughout the system.
“These are decisions that leaders have to make, and we're hopeful that they would use our work to either support those decisions or to at least reach out to us to understand what our work might suggest with the implications of staffing cuts in various areas of VA,” Kroviak said.
The Hampton VA healthcare system came under scrutiny after several scathing Inspector General's reports highlighted problems at the main hospital over several years.
In one report, the Inspector General was critical of how the staff in the intensive care unit treated a 65 year old patient, who died at the hospital in 2023. The patient had recurring issues with alcoholism and showed severe side effects of detoxification.
The veteran died when being removed from life support at the hospital, after suffering a heart attack. The inspector general questioned whether nurses and providers properly documented the veteran’s condition and administered the proper medication. The case was referred to the IG by Rep. Jen Kiggens’ office.
Last year, the VA removed the top leadership, bringing in Walt Dannenberg as interim director. Dannenberg’s assignment ended in March.
The Inspector General met with the staff at Hampton in August, roughly a month after new leadership was put in place. The healthcare system had seen a 7 percent jump from 2021 to 2023.
“We were meeting traumatized staff, and we expected to so this is not unusual, but we'll continue to keep a close eye on Hampton,” Kroviak said. “It deserves a very close eye, probably for quite. And on top of that, the growing population. So you've had this leadership drama now you've still got acting (administrators) in place.”
