SLC mental health unit for veterans shut down, but officials won’t say why

Union leader blames understaffing and a hiring freeze as Trump-era budget cuts loom.

Officials at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Salt Lake City are not accepting new patients needing inpatient behavioral health treatment, but V.A. officials have not explained why or how long this move will last.

“Right now, we are diverting patients” to other facilities, V.A. spokesperson Jeremy Laird said. “We aren’t accepting new patients.”

The diversions from the George E. Wahlen Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center near the University of Utah campus have been in place since at least Friday.

Laird has said since Friday he would provide information about the cause for the diversions, how long it might go and the status of the veterans who were in the program. As of early Thursday afternoon, he had not done so.

Inpatient services are provided to those veterans needing rehabilitation care or experiencing an acute mental health crisis.

The Salt Lake Tribune asked the Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General if it had any information or role in the patient diversion. A spokesperson said the agency “does not, as a matter of course, confirm or deny any ongoing investigations.”

Taylor Ricks, a spokesperson for the Utah Department of Veterans and Military Affairs, said the state veterans agency was aware of the situation but did not know any details about why it was happening. He said it was expected to be a temporary disruption.

A spokesperson for the Huntsman Mental Health Institute at the U. said its facility is “here to help anyone who needs support.” And a claims worker at Veterans of Foreign Wars’ Utah branch had not heard about the treatment interruptions as of Wednesday.

Rob Johnson, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2199, which represents V.A. workers, said the federal department is “outsourcing veterans” because it lacks the staffing to accept new patients. He said the agency has had a hiring freeze in place since the start of the Trump administration and had limited hiring new employees for a year before that.

“We have not been able to hire anyone for over two years,” Johnson said.

In addition, he said, all probationary employees — those who had been hired within the previous year — were terminated. That, he added, has exacerbated staffing shortages elsewhere in the hospital.

“Our housekeeping department was down to 43 people for the entire hospital. It‘s supposed to be up over 150,” Johnson said. The shortage has meant shutting down one of the hospital’s operating rooms, he noted. “We are completely understaffed in every department.”

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Feb. 13 instituting across-the-board job cuts at federal agencies. A memo last month from V.A. Chief of Staff Christopher Syrek spelled out a plan to reduce staffing to fewer than 400,000 employees — which means eliminating 80,000 jobs nationwide within the department.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins said at the time that the layoffs would not impact veterans’ health care or benefits.

“We’re going to accomplish this without making cuts to health care or benefits to veterans and V.A. beneficiaries,” Collins said in a video posted on social media. “V.A. will always fulfill its duty to provide veterans, families, caregivers and survivors the health care and benefits they have earned. That‘s a promise.”

Congress passed legislation in 2022 to add 60,000 workers within the V.A. to help improve service to the nation’s veterans.

“It‘s going to affect the veterans — bottom line,” Johnson said. “If we don’t have enough employees and they start shutting down different departments, our veterans are … out of luck.”