More on our evolving VA mental health situation -- for therapists working internally at the VA:

V.A. Mental Health Care Staff, Crowded into Federal Buildings, Raise Patient Privacy Alarms
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/04/us/politics/veterans-affairs-mental-health-privacy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Ek8.rIgF.r70z0QzHxtJq&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Make sure to watch the short video at the beginning. Two therapist desks stuck in the windowless copy room with the office copying machine. Even if you are inclined not to read the article, scroll to the bottom to see the photos of actual workspaces.

I'm posting this for the obvious reasons -- to decry the conditions for both staff and veterans, and in a hope that our professional associations take yet another task on to fight this.

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"In a Boston V.A. hospital, six social workers are conducting phone and telehealth visits with veterans from a single, crowded room, clinicians say. In Kansas City, providers are planning patient care while facing each other across narrow, cafeteria-style tables in a large, open space, according to staff members."

"And in South Florida, psychiatric nurses have been treating veterans with mental health conditions in a hallway near a bathroom, sitting down with them in a makeshift medical bay jury-rigged out of filing cabinets and a translucent screen."

"'People walking by can hear everything that’s going on,' said Bill Frogameni, an acute care psychiatric nurse at the Miami V.A."

...

"The cramped conditions are the result of President Trump’s decision to rescind remote work arrangements for federal employees, reversing a policy that at the V.A. long predated the pandemic. Since Mr. Trump’s order, the Department of Veterans Affairs has been scrambling to find adequate office space for tens of thousands of health care employees, even those who see most or all of their patients virtually, while maintaining the legal requirement of confidentiality."

...

"...clinicians say they are being asked to administer mental health treatment or discuss sensitive information in open settings where conversations can be overheard."

"Veterans have noticed the lack of privacy, clinicians say. They described patients newly hesitant to discuss issues like legal problems, substance abuse and intimate partner violence, limiting the effectiveness of their treatment. Some clinicians said they had trouble hearing patients over the phone or during video calls in their new, telemarketing-style work spaces."
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But really, just read the whole article. I could quote the whole thing.

-- Michael

V.A. Mental Health Care Staff, Crowded into Federal Buildings, Raise Patient Privacy Alarms
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/04/us/politics/veterans-affairs-mental-health-privacy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Ek8.rIgF.r70z0QzHxtJq&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

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