The demonstrators gathered in front of the headquarters of the Veterans Department in Washington, DC, United States, on February 13, 2025. The agency plans to reduce 80,000 jobs.
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Al Drago / Bloomberg via Getty Images
Following federal dismissals And executive decrees, providers and patients in the veterans department say that mental health and mental health care suffer.
They fear that this struggle will get worse as it takes place with 80,000 Promised job cuts. The agency is one of the largest mental health care providers in the country.
“I really had trouble my concentration and my ability to concentrate when I am at work, because I have the impression of having this ax above my head,” explains a mental health supplier who asked NPR not to disclose the location of his work and identify him only as Lynn, her name of name, for fear that she is not dismissed for expressed.
Dei and gender orders
Lynn is particularly concerned about his customers who identify themselves as LGBTQ, because a executive decree called federal employees to eliminate “equity related subsidies or contracts another ordered them to recognize that two sexes.
Consequently, VA employees have been responsible for removing symbols such as flags that indicate support for transgender or queer rights. “We are around somehow,” says Lynn. “Some people have set up art in their office which says that” love is love “, or a rainbow. So we are all subversive.”
Therapists of other places have reported a similar concern that these patients – already in a marginalized population – are being distinguished and targeted for discrimination. They used strategies similar to Lynn to silently communicate a solidarity message to patients who identify themselves as LGBTQ.
These rebellions have a price.
“If I wear this kind of thing, then I will become a target of my patients or maybe my peers?” Lynn asks. “Because there is this culture of,” you have to put people away. “”
The employees of the VA have received emails encouraging them to report colleagues who violate the new ban on diversity, equity and inclusion. There have also been high -level layoffs in the army of managers who are Black Or female.
Lynn says these changes also destabilize patients. “We have had patients who go to medical records and requesting that their graphs be changed,” she says, “to remove references to their gender identity or their sexual orientation because they fear that they are put on a list or that they could be discriminated against.”
Anxiety about what can happen
Some patients with post-traumatic stress disorder say that changes are particularly disconcerting. A woman, who asked to be identified only as DM, says that she has suffered from almost constant anxiety since the start of changes in the VA. For 26 years, she served as an active service as a infirmarian and was sexually assaulted by a colleague member of the service. She says that since then, she has strictly avoided being alone in the rooms with men.
“Even if you have to enter the office secretary, you make sure you are not head-to-face with this man, and it is to protect you and protect him,” explains DM
Receiving both mental and physical health care in a clinic of all women, she said, has been extremely useful. DM fears that such spaces will be eliminated from the lives of veterans and the army. “We are going to get rid of everything that involves women, transgender, you know, all that,” she said.
The VA has not announced its intention to reduce such clinics, and the declared objective of DM references to the executive order is to “protect women”. In a declaration sent by E-mail de la VA, the spokesperson Peter Kasperowicz wrote: “The VA will always offer veterans, families, caregivers and survivors health care and the advantages they won.”
Doug Collins, secretary to veterans, promised to preserve “Mission“Positions such as clinicians.
Research can end
But some VA employees and veterans defenders warn that getting rid of all staff could compromise care in a system that is based on an integrated and mental health model, including research stations.
“High quality research is one of high quality care,” explains Rashi Romanoff, CEO of a non -profit organization, the National Association of Veterans’ Research and Education Foundations (Navref). The group makes a plea for research for veterans and warns that $ 35 million in current research could be lost if AV does not preserve indefinitely between 350 and 400 clinical trials.
In a declaration sent by email to NPR, the spokesperson for VA Kasperowicz said that the agency would continue to finance these programs for 90 days “while the ministry is carrying out a full assessment of current research.” Tests include research on subjects such as suicide attenuation and processing of substance consumption disorder, according to Navref data collection.
Nurse Practitioner Lynn says that going to work every day has the impression that she is working on the Titanic. “Half people in the boat are still in the ballroom and 25% of them actively tell me that I am hysterical,” she said.
She plans to stay on board until she has no choice but to save herself.
Do you have any information you want to share on current changes through the federal government? Katia Riddle is available via encrypted communications on AT Katia signal.75