May 25 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs on Thursday announced that it had signed a collective bargaining agreement with the National Nurses United union.
The agency said the agreement, also signed with the National Nurses Organizing Committee, would help it to better retain nurses, hire nurses more quickly, improve the safety environment for nurses, and add the nurses required to implement the PACT Act — the largest expansion of Veteran health care and benefits in decades.
“Nurses are the bedrock of VA health care, saving and improving veterans’ lives every day,” VA Secretary Denis McDonough said in a statement. “This agreement with NNOC/NNU helps us hire, support, retain, and onboard VA’s incredible nurses — which, in turn, will help us continue delivering world-class care to our nation’s Veterans.”
The VA has hired 6,568 registered nurses, 1,216 licensed practical nurses, and 1,768 nursing assistants in the first half of fiscal year 2023. These hirings are most in the past 20 years. The administration is expecting to hire nearly 11,000 workers for the year.
“As a result of these efforts, nursing turnover rates at VA remain far lower than in the private sector,” the agency said.
The agreement comes on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic, in which VA nurses helped provide more than 332 million health care appointments to veterans, care for more than 870,000 veterans with COVID-19, and vaccinate more than 4.4 million veterans.