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The Las Cruces Mobile Vet Center is hosting the event to provide information about VA benefits and resources, including VA health care eligibility and enrollment, suicide prevention efforts, disability compensation, VA home loans, and HUD-VASH housing assistance.
The New Mexico Department of Veterans' Service will be able to help with VA benefit claims.
The Veterans Resource Pop-Up Event will be held at New Mexico State Veterans' Home, located at 992 S. Broadway St., from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
If you're a veteran in crisis or concerned about one, you can contact the Veterans Crisis Line to receive 24/7 confidential support. To reach responders, dial 988 then press 1, chat online at VeteransCrisisLine.net, or text 838255.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Newsweek
2 days ago
- Newsweek
VA Report Finds 'Severe' Staffing Shortages
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The Intercept
4 days ago
- The Intercept
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But a policy change by the Trump administration stands to make reproductive health for service members and veterans even worse. Last week, the administration posted a proposed rule for VA facilities that would severely narrow access to abortion — eliminating exceptions for health, rape, and incest, and only allowing the procedure in situations deemed to threaten the life of the mother. The rule would also ban any counseling for abortion through the VA. The proposed policy now enters a mandatory 30-day comment period, after which it can go into effect. Experts told The Intercept that the rule change will have devastating consequences for the millions of service members and veterans reliant on health care through the VA, as well as their families. 'It's the worst-case scenario,' said Rachel Fey, vice president of policy and strategic partnerships at Power to Decide, a nonprofit focused on reproductive and sexual health. 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Fey and other reproductive health experts had anticipated the Trump administration would institute an abortion ban at the VA. But they told The Intercept that this version is particularly draconian considering the dramatic fall-off in abortion access following the Dobbs decision. 'This new policy would be one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, and for veterans living in the 12 states that ban abortion, it would further close off what may be their only opportunity to access urgently needed abortion care,' said Liz McCaman Taylor, senior federal policy counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, in a statement. 'For veterans living in these states, they may now be forced to carry pregnancies to term even if they were raped or the pregnancy puts their health in jeopardy.' The proposed rule would 'reinstate the full exclusion on abortions and abortion counseling.' 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Read Our Complete Coverage The counseling ban also means veterans or active-duty service members referred to the Veterans Affairs administration for care after being sexually assaulted can't discuss abortion as an option with their provider. 'We already know that women veterans experience Military Sexual Trauma at alarming rates, and many of us continue to fight battles long after our service ends,' said Stephanie Gattas, founder of the Pink Berets, which offers support for women veterans struggling with PTSD, military sexual assault, and other mental health issues. Over 8,000 service members, who can also be referred to the VA for care, reported being sexually assaulted last year. And nearly 500 people reported being sexually assaulted while on a VA campus last year, according to Church. Both numbers are likely a severe undercount. 'The military community is wrought with sexual violence,' said Church. 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Boston Globe
5 days ago
- Boston Globe
Every VA medical center has severe staffing shortages, audit finds
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In response to the report, VA press secretary Peter Kasperowicz said the findings aren't a reliable indicator of staffing shortages because the 'report simply lists occupations facilities feel are difficult for which to recruit and retain, so the results are completely subjective, not standardized and unreliable.' Advertisement Kasperowicz said the department-wide vacancy rates for doctors and nurses are 14 percent and 10 percent, respectively. Reacting to the report, Democrats warned the staffing situation probably was worse than the inspector general found. 'This report confirms what we've warned for months - this Administration is driving dedicated VA employees to the private sector at untenable rates,' Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, said in a statement. 'Staffing shortages at the Department are getting significantly worse, including critical veterans' health care positions and essential jobs that keep VA facilities running.' Representative Mark Takano of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, said in a statement that the report 'confirms our fears' and criticized Collins. 'Instead of making VA an employer of choice, Secretary Collins continues to vilify the VA workforce and strip them of their rights,' Takano said in the statement, referring to the news last week that VA is no longer recognizing most workers' collective bargaining rights. 'Now, VA is facing critical staffing shortages across the country, leading to decreased access and choice for veterans. Veterans deserve and have earned better.' The department, which had about 467,000 employees as of June, is in charge of providing health care to more than 9 million veterans through its medical centers and 1,193 outpatient clinics. In recent years, VA's budget and workforce have grown significantly - in part to accommodate the Pact Act, which was enacted in 2022 and caused disability claims and enrollment in the health care system to surge. Advertisement The increase in new patients has further strained the existing staff. Another inspector general report from earlier this year found one Virginia facility's primary care staff described 'burnout and fatigue' due to the workload last year. Department leaders announced plans in March to slash the department's workforce by up to 83,000 workers, leading to tanking morale within the workforce and backlash from veterans' groups and lawmakers. Critics of the cuts said it would be impossible to slash that many employees without straining medical services. The department reversed its plans for mass firings in July, announcing instead that it would reduce staffing by nearly 30,000 employees by the end of this fiscal year through retirements, attrition, and deferred resignations. Collins has repeatedly assured lawmakers and VA employees that he will not cull the department's medical staff. Mission-critical positions were exempt from voluntary buyouts, the department said. But Veterans Affairs was not immune to staffing reductions earlier this year by the cost-cutting US DOGE Service: The department lost more than 1,600 probationary workers, including Veterans Crisis Line operators who were later brought back. The inspector general's office has been surveying staffing in the department for over a decade, and it has repeatedly concluded that medical centers are understaffed in key medical jobs. For instance, last year the watchdog said that 86 percent of campuses reported severe shortages of medical officers, which includes primary care doctors, psychiatrists, and other positions, and 82 percent reported severe shortages of nurses. Shortages are self-reported by local VA health care systems across the country and can be caused by several factors. The report doesn't specify how many of these jobs are open for hiring or the degree to which staffing cuts or influxes of patients contribute to reported shortages. Advertisement This year's report showed a slight improvement in some categories. For instance, while jobs in psychology remained the most frequently reported clinical severe staffing shortage at VA medical center campuses, six fewer facilities reported such shortages. Custodial workers, which campuses most frequently reported that they were lacking last year, were no longer the nonclinical job with the biggest scarcity, replaced by police officers.
