The VA is not waste, it’s a lifeline

Last week, the chief of staff for the Veterans Affairs Department released a memo proposing that the federal government slash more than 80,000 positions at the agency. The memo was accompanied by a 4-minute video by VA Secretary Doug Collins, declaring that the department was done “kicking the can down the road” as it set out to return staffing to 2019 levels.

Although the secretary has stated that VA healthcare will not be impacted by this proposed mass-firing, veterans and employees, many of whom are veterans themselves, are not reassured. 

What are these cuts targeted at? If not healthcare and research, then what? Other VA services like processing benefits claims? Job training? National cemetery upkeep? What’s clear is that a “Reduction in Force” would devastate services for over nine million veterans, striking at the mission of this vital institution while betraying the commitment to service members our country made when we first enlisted. 

I followed in the footsteps of my grandfathers, father, brother and uncles, and joined the military in 2005 at the age of 22. My 14 years as a combat medic in the Army National Guard included multiple national defense missions and deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. A 2012 I.E.D. blast in Helmand Province blew up my truck and injured all occupants, including me, bringing my deployment to an end. After 10 months of surgeries and recovery at Fort Belvoir and Walter Reed, I was left with traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder and permanent nerve damage to my feet and ankles. 

In the years following, frustrated by mounting medical bills, and, ironically, long wait times in the private health system, I transferred all my health care to the VA. The decision was life-changing. My care team at the VA saw me quickly, understood my military experiences, and had the know-how and resources to treat me. 

It shouldn’t have been a surprise because the mission of the VA has always been to care for military veterans in an environment of comradery. That’s important because veterans face many health challenges that civilian doctors aren’t equipped to identify or treat.

Take the example of burn pits. While deployed to the Middle East and Afghanistan following Sept. 11, 2001, many service members were exposed to toxic smoke particles and gases from burning trash, feces, computer waste, batteries, and anything else that needed disposal. Veterans returning from these deployments have higher rates of breathing problems, like asthma and C.O.P.D., and rarer conditions such as constrictive bronchiolitis. Many veterans wonder: What will happen as I get older? Will my lungs be permanently scarred? Or will I get cancer? 

Only the VA and the research programs it supports can answer these types of questions. I work in VA research. In our research group, we perform head-to-toe evaluations of veterans with deployment-related breathing problems. In the last year, we’ve begun recruiting civilians as “control” subjects in a long-term follow up study to understand the unique impacts of burn pits and other airborne hazards on veterans. If research programs are dismantled with the proposed cuts, these programs will be at risk.

That’s terrible for everyone, not just veterans. Because many of the VA’s scientific breakthroughs benefit all Americans, including prosthetics, cardiac pacemakers, and treatments for traumatic brain injury. (If the government is looking to save money, they will be disappointed: the entire VA research budget amounts to less than 0.01% of the annual federal budget.)

As long-time federal employees exit stage left — some taking the Fork in the Road buyout, others having their contracts terminated — the VA is in crisis. Without the research staff needed to design, implement and analyze the data, there will be no research. Without sufficient clinical staff, there will be no healthcare. The planned cuts will exacerbate an already dire shortage of specialists, hinder successful  implementation of long-overdue reforms like modernization of our antiquated electronic health records, and risk leaving veterans without the care they need. 

I’m not saying that the VA doesn’t have room for improvement. Hiring is rife with delays and the bureaucracy slows delivery of services. But there’s a way to improve VA without hasty and indiscriminate cuts that will set us back and hinder our ability to provide compassionate care.