New VA secretary calls for hiring ’tens of thousands’ of practitioners

The Department of Veterans Affairs must hire “tens of thousands of new doctors, new nurses, new clinicians” to address a shortage of employees who are directly involved in treating patients, a factor many experts said was a main driver in the waiting-list scandal that rocked the agency this year.Yet the new VA secretary, Robert A. McDonald, recently acknowledged that it would be difficult to fill many of those slots. In some parts of the country, such as Phoenix, Arizona—where the scandal erupted—the shortage of doctors and nurses has been acute, and the department will have to compete in a tough job market to recruit talent.

Source: New York Times