As part of a federal hiring freeze, the Minneapolis Veterans Medical Center was getting ready on Thursday to extend employment offers for clinical and hospital positions that it had revoked two days prior.
In a statement released Thursday, the Department of Veterans Affairs clarified that 39 groups of healthcare professionals were not subject to the employment ban imposed by the Trump administration on its first day in office.
The announcement followed lawmakers like U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn, who criticized the broad employment freeze. When she learned that the Minneapolis VA had halted the recruiting of important clinical staff on Wednesday, she took to social media.
“It just enrages me that they would issue this executive order without really considering the impact it has on veterans or the people that work in the VA hospitals,” she said in an interview on Thursday, adding that “they seem to be backtracking.”
In an email sent on Tuesday, Minneapolis VA director Patrick Kelly informed his employees that it would have to cancel employment offers to 18 individuals who would not be “onboarded” by February 8 and cancel potential employment offers to an additional 65 individuals. Clinicians tasked with providing more medical treatment to neglected rural areas were among those laid off.
Kelly stated in the message that it was meant to provide clarity amid internal uncertainty regarding the hiring freeze, “This is not good news and I appreciate this will create staffing gaps.” They gave the Minnesota Star Tribune a copy of the memo.
The clarification from Thursday allows the VA to resume hiring some of these people. On Thursday, Minneapolis VA officials could not say which jobs or how many will be reinstated.
Physicians, nurses, physician assistants, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, and psychologists are among the professions that are not affected by the freeze.
.
Leave a Reply