A chorus of car horns, from droning lento to enthusiastic staccato, showered the crowd of protesters as drivers passed by the Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Fuller Street on Wednesday afternoon. Hundreds of VA employees, mostly nurses, as well as labor rights organizations and others allied to the cause, gathered outside the VA hospital to protest staffing cuts proposed by the Trump Administration. The rally was organized by National Nurses United (NNU) and its affiliate group National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC).
“We are out here today to stand against an attempt to financially clip the wings of the VA labor force that help us fly,” said Allencia Hinnant, a registered nurse who’s worked at the Durham VA for three years.
According to a leaked memo obtained by the Associated Press in March, the Trump administration, led by unelected technocrat Elon Musk, intends to continue their slash-and-burn campaign of the federal workforce by firing nearly 80,000 employees across the VA department.
During an impassioned speech, Hinnant told the crowd veterans shouldn’t be discarded by the country and the federal government they swore to protect.
“Stripping the VA of staff would be like taking the clothes off our veterans and leaving them outside in 32 degree weather,” she said. “Our veterans deserve specific care for the specific sacrifice they paid for our country. We, as nurses to these heroes, must say no. We must say no to policies that force us into staffing and resource crises. We must say no to policies that ultimately jeopardize the safety of our veterans. We must say no to leaving our veterans short because the price they paid with their bodies and their minds was not cheap.”
NNU and NNOC represent more than 1,000 registered nurses at the Durham VA, and more than 15,000 registered nurses at 23 Veterans Health Administration facilities across the country. The union held a similar protest at Jesse Brown VA Medical Center in Chicago in early March.
Veterans Health Administration provides care at 1,380 health care facilities, including 170 medical centers nationwide. That network of VA providers is the country’s largest integrated healthcare system. In addition to health services, Veterans Affairs also provides a variety of supportive services including housing, education and job training. In 2024, the VHA served 9.1 million registered veterans—including my 82-year-old Opa just last month—the highest-ever level of enrollment, according to the VA.
The hospital is already short-staffed, according to a number of employees at the protest. Nurses are pulling double duty, having to step away from patients to deliver meals and perform other administrative tasks. NNU representatives say the massive cuts to staff would deeply affect the quality of patient care and result in longer wait times for veterans, closure of VA facilities, and more.
James Lawson, an administrator who’s worked at the VA for over 25 years, says the staffing cuts would have a ripple effect beyond just the folks inside the hospital.
“It would have an astronomical impact, and economic impact as well, because there are so many veterans that not only need medical care, they need psychological care,” Lawson says. “It will impact our entire community, and it’s devastating a lot of families when they cut jobs and services to veterans.”
Federal cuts have already taken a toll on the Triangle community. Funding freezes to organizations like USAID led to thousands of scientists, researchers, and medical professionals, many based in Research Triangle Park, losing their jobs. Local governments also are bracing themselves for even more cuts to education and potentially other important services like transportation and libraries.
Wednesday’s rally attracted folks from around the Triangle who say they are deeply disturbed by these actions. Elena Ceberio, who traveled from Raleigh to participate in the protest, stood alongside other protestors on the sidewalk holding her homemade art project, a sign that read “DOGE crown! FLUSH EM” atop a giant coiled turd and the names “Putin” and “Musk”—a visceral representation of her disdain for the current administration.
“It’s disgraceful what is being done,” Ceberio says. “Veterans have already given whether you believe in war or not … They’re just snake oil salesmen. That’s all they are. There’s a lot of evilness and there’s a lot of bullshit behind capitalism. He’s the perfect president for this time. Let him blow it all up.”
Despite the uncertainty employees at the VA remain committed to their jobs, and the mission of the hospital. Radiologist Tom Farmer says the folks who come to work at the VA are called there because they want to make a difference.
“There’s all the physicians who work at the VA who are taking a significant pay cut to work here, but we do it because we believe in the mission,” Farmer says. “… But I had some colleagues that when the administration changed and we started getting these emails from Elon Musk, they didn’t feel so welcome anymore. And so now we have people leaving our department. One of them is gay and is married. They’re all worried about getting fired.”
Farmer worries the federal administration’s approach to dismantling the VA system will deter prospective employees, too.
“We have people who were committed to joining us and decided they did not want to be a probationary federal employee, because that’s a year where they can fire you for any reason whatsoever,” Farmer says. “And so now we can’t offer the same kind of services that we could just three months ago to veterans.
Advocates are already concerned about recent efforts to privatize health care for veterans in recent years, saying that it’s led to a degradation in service. In 2014, Congress passed the CHOICE Act which gives veterans access to health care vouchers for use outside the VA system, similar to the state’s Opportunity Scholarship program for private schools.
“This is a far too cynical way to phrase it, but the way healthcare is set up in the US is reimbursement based, so the private sector makes money when you get sick,” Farmer says. “The wonderful thing about the VA is that the VA has this pool of patients, and it’s in their best interest, it’s in everybody’s best interest, to keep them as healthy as possible. And so all the incentives are on the right side here in the VA.”
As much as employees and other protesters harbored frustration with the current federal administration, that didn’t keep them from uplifting the positives that the VA offers the community. Shauna Farmer, Tom’s wife, trained at the VA hospital while attending medical school at Duke.
“When I was a medical student across the street, I was taught as much by the nurses as I was by the physicians, and also, taught by the patients,” Shauna says.
Tom leaned in to comfort Shauna; she was visibly emotional as she reflected on the impact of her time working with veterans.
“I remain indebted, thirty years later, to the veterans that allowed me to work together with them so that I could learn to be a doctor,” Shauna says. “So this place is important, and we need everybody to be able to work here so that our veterans can get the care they deserve.”
Disclosure: A family member of the author is employed by the VA.
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