NEWS FROM….

CONGRESSMAN LANE EVANS

RANKING DEMOCRATIC MEMBER

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS AFFAIRS

    U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

FOR RELEASE: April 12, 2000

WASHINGTON, DC - Congressman Lane Evans (D-IL), Ranking Member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, today criticized the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for failing to take action to avoid a potential shortage of health care providers and improve its recruitment and retention of scarce medical professionals. Following a hearing that examined a range of VA health care staffing issues, Evans indicated his frustration with VA’s failure to acknowledge problems that could jeopardize the delivery of patient care. "If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem," Evans said, "and today VA demonstrated it is clearly part of the problem." Referring to Mike Doyle (D-PA), Evans said, "My colleague from Pennsylvania is right when he says you can’t find a solution if you don’t admit there’s a problem. Right now VA is in denial."

Officials from VA repeatedly denied the department was experiencing difficulty recruiting and retaining qualified health care professionals—particularly the doctors, dentists and registered nurses who comprise the bulk of their workforce. But representatives from employee groups—including some witnesses that were directly involved in recruitment activities for their peers sharply disagreed with the assessment by VA. "…if I am to carry out my responsibility to the veterans who come through the doors of my hospital, then I need well-qualified staff. Today, I do not have the adequate tools to attract them," said Dr. John F. Burton, Jr., the Chief of the Dental Service at Columbia, SC, VA Medical Center, who was representing the National Association of VA Physicians and Dentists.

The panel heard testimony from employee groups that reported VA is struggling to recruit new dentists. VA has lost 11% of its workforce in the last five years and in recent years has experienced turnover rates of almost 25%.

VA’s large (almost 35,000) corps of registered nurses are also growing increasingly dissatisfied with VA implementation of legislation intended to improve their pay in the early 1990s. "Nurses are constantly worrying about their practice, and most feel the joy of nursing is gone for them. Nurses are finally saying, ‘We can’t do this anymore,’" said Margaret Kruckemeyer, herself a nurse at the Dayton, OH, VA Medical Center, testifying on behalf of the Nurses Organization of Veterans Affairs.

"Nurses haven’t had the same pay raise as most federal employees in several years", said Evans. "Until this year, some VA Medical Centers had not given their registered nurses any pay raise in several years".

Evans also stressed that enrollment in nursing and dental schools had dropped and was likely to exacerbate the recruitment problems VA was experiencing, especially as large numbers of employees are likely to retire over the next couple of years.

The subcommittee examined the merits of two bills that have been proposed to address these problems. One is a bipartisan response to the nurse pay problem. Another bipartisan bill introduced by Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA), a member of the veterans’ panel, would authorize VA to provide dentists with the same pay increments as physicians for working in VA full-time and for tenure. Evans supports both bills.

The congressional panel was noticeably disappointed by VA’s lack of response to the looming health care personnel crises that were described by Burton, Kruckemeyer, and representatives of the American Federation of Government Employees, and the American Dental Association.