退伍军人事务部新建数十家医疗中心，但无法招到足够医生和员工

VA built dozens of new veteran health centers but can’t find enough doctors and staff

2026-10-01T09:00:29.940Z / CNN

Fredericksburg, Virginia—

When the Department of Veterans Affairs opened a new, state-of-the-art clinic with ribbon-cutting fanfare last year in his hometown of Fredericksburg, Virgina, Michael Dunlap was thrilled to have care so close.

Dunlap, 63, has been treated in recent years for a ruptured disk in his back, skin cancer, shoulder and neck issues, and respiratory problems. But at the Fredericksburg VA Health Care Center about an hour south of Washington, DC, he’s already gone through four primary care doctors in about a year-and-a-half.

“You get a form letter that just says, you know, ‘Appreciate serving you. I won’t be there anymore,’” said Dunlap, who spent 23 years in the Marines as a master gunnery sergeant. “You build up a rapport with a doctor, and now you lose a little bit of confidence because now you’ve got to explain everything all over again.”

Touted by the VA as “the nation’s largest VA health care clinic,” the 470,000-square-foot, $300 million facility is still struggling to adequately staff up more than 18 months after opening, according to veterans; health care providers; and members of Congress who represent the area, which has one of the highest concentrations of veterans in the United States.

They describe a vast parking lot and gleaming hallways – much of the space empty – and difficulties getting appointments or being seen by a medical professional, even in urgent care situations.

It’s a scene playing out across the country where the VA has built or updated about 40 health care facilities after legislation enacted under President Joe Biden expanded benefits, and there was a surge of veterans enrolling for care.

That effort has run headlong into a national health care crisis, especially in rural America, driven by critical workforce shortages and funding pressures that led to widespread hospital closures. The VA is facing similar staffing problems – and having trouble competing with the private sector to fill jobs.

Last month, the department’s inspector general found that 97% of VA facilities reported severe shortages of candidates for doctor occupations, and 86% had severe shortages of candidates for nursing positions, a sign of the widespread trouble they have filling jobs. The report says these facilities do not necessarily all have vacancies, but rather that the facilities have identified those jobs as ones that are difficult to fill.

While the Fredericksburg clinic has undergone a phased, rolling opening, it still has a staffing vacancy rate of nearly 40%, which means more than 350 positions haven’t been filled, according to VA data obtained by CNN. Roughly half of the new facilities had double-digit vacancy rates as of July, the data shows.

“That means that veterans are not getting the services they require,” Rep. Eugene Vindman told CNN. The Virginia Democrat represents the district where the Fredericksburg clinic is located.

Vindman, a former Army paratrooper and JAG officer whose district includes about 72,000 veterans, said his staff has been fielding calls from frustrated veterans complaining about services at the facility, which is near Marine Corps Base Quantico and US Army Garrison Fort A.P. Hill.

“It is the fact that they can’t keep staff, that they can’t hire staff, that it’s taking too long. That’s making wait times too long,” Vindman said. “That’s making it impossible for veterans to actually get in the door. And that’s what needs to get fixed.”

The VA staunchly defends its operations at the Fredericksburg clinic and the care offered to veterans. VA press secretary Quinn Slaven, in a statement to CNN, said that the clinic has “met its hiring goals” so far as the phased opening continues, but did not elaborate on what the goals were.

“In less than two years since opening, the clinic has already completed more than 245,000 appointments and is ahead of schedule for enrolling new patients,” Slaven said.

Slaven said all eligible veterans have the choice to get care at the Fredericksburg clinic or at other nearby VA locations. Or veterans can opt to get care at community providers in the private sector at the VA’s expense, he said.

Slaven also stressed what he called “dramatic improvements” in how well America’s veterans have been served overall during the second Trump administration. For instance, he said there’s been a drastic reduction in the backlog of veterans waiting for VA benefits.

One health care provider at the Fredericksburg health care center, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, as well as other sources familiar with the facility, painted a different picture.

They said a staffing crunch there has led to burnout, departures and the need to shuttle employees from a larger VA medical center in Richmond, Virginia, about an hour to the south.

“It’s overload. They’re exhausted. They’re leaving,” the provider said about doctors and other caregivers, describing employees not taking lunch breaks and a work atmosphere akin to a “car production line.”

Katharine Cunningham-Carlot, a 52-year-old Army veteran who lives in Fredericksburg, said she had trouble getting appointments for neurology, ENT, psychiatry and physical therapy.

She said she recently sought urgent care for an ear infection at the Fredericksburg facility, only to be told there was no provider to see her.

“There was nobody in the waiting room. It was completely empty. I said, ‘Could I see anybody?’” she said, relaying her conversation with reception. She said she was told no. When she asked if she could see a nurse, she said, again, she was told no.

Cunningham-Carlot said the parking lot was just as empty. “I actually thought this would be a good place to practice teenage driving,” she joked.

Ashley Carothers didn’t even get in the door. The 40-year-old Air Force veteran, who lives in Woodbridge, Virginia, had long battled traffic on the I-95 corridor to get care at the VA Medical Center in Washington, DC. She thought it would be far easier to go to the Fredericksburg facility.

“And so, I made a phone call. I was told on the phone, ‘Actually, you’re better off, because of staffing shortages, just to keep your care at DC,’” she told CNN.

The health care sector has been sounding the alarm for years. The Health Resources and Services Administration, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, projected in December that the US would experience an overall shortage of more than 141,000 physicians by 2038.

“There’s a shortage of radiologists. There’s a shortage of primary care practitioners. There’s a shortage of mental health practitioners”, said Suzanne Gordon, senior policy analyst for the progressive-leaning Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute.

“We are seeing a worsening of the health care shortages across the country,” said Dr. David Shulkin, who served as VA secretary in the first Trump administration and was an undersecretary for health during the Obama administration.

“Burnout is not isolated to the VA,” he added. “This is a big problem in health care in general. We’re seeing nurses and doctors, in particular, leaving the workforce at earlier ages because of the stress of the environment.”

But Shulkin added that the VA is constrained by factors that are not of its own making – including restrictions on what it can pay health care providers and an unwieldy bureaucracy. He said it can take weeks longer to hire and credential a doctor at the VA than it would take in the private sector.

“This is asking the VA to do something with several hands tied behind their back,” Shulkin said. “They are limited in their ability to be able to attract qualified health care professionals with the authorities that they’re given, in terms of salary and the flexibility to be able to pay market rates.”

Under a current salary cap, doctors at the VA cannot earn more than the salary of the president of the United States, or $400,000 per year. Under legislation passed during the Biden administration, the VA can use waivers for 300 doctor positions to pay above that amount.

But Shulkin says 300 waivers are inadequate for the VA health care system that includes 170 medical centers and nearly 1,200 outpatient sites. Moreover, the current VA administration has not used all of those waivers, according to congressional sources familiar with the matter.

Slaven, the VA press secretary, told CNN that the “VA is in the process of assigning all 300 of the salary cap waivers,” and noted that only about 1% of VA’s doctors get the exemption.

“It takes considerable time and effort to allocate them in a way that doesn’t negatively impact morale and retention among the department’s broader physician workforce — most of whom will not receive waivers,” Slaven said.

Slaven added: “VA’s ability to recruit and retain health care personnel is hindered by statutory pay caps for physicians, who in many instances can make several hundred thousand dollars more per year in the private sector.”

Gordon says the VA under the leadership of Doug Collins, Trump’s VA secretary, is not blameless for the staffing problems.

Gordon points to cutbacks under Collins. The VA workforce has been reduced by about 30,000 employees this year and last, and the agency has eliminated tens of thousands of vacant positions.

“The word on the street now … is that, you know, ‘Don’t work at the VA,’” Gordon said. “It’s an unstable work environment. It’s a hostile work environment.”