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Letter: Veterans Administration loses focus

By John M. Kimbrough, Vancouver
Published: January 29, 2016, 6:00am

I read with interest the Jan. 22 Associated Press story “VA chief to Congress: You can’t fire your way to excellence.” According to the story, since the Veterans Administration scandal broke in 2014, 2,600 people have been fired. But last year, the VA hired 41,000 people, bringing number of VA employees to 340,000. Of the 41,000 hired last year, only 14,000 were health care workers. Of the 14,000 health care workers hired, only 1,300 doctors, and 3,600 were nurses. This means that out of 41,000 hires, only 4,900 doctors and nurses were hired. What are the other 36,000 hires doing to help our vets?

How is this hiring pattern justified when our veterans still cannot get medical treatment they need at VA hospitals in a reasonable time frame? Maybe the VA could only find 1,300 doctors who were interested in working for the VA because of pay or other working conditions. Or perhaps the VA firings should begin at the top again.

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