The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has touted the opening of 43 new healthcare clinics since President Donald Trump returned to the White House as evidence of expanded access to care, as the department pushes back against concerns over staffing shortages at its medical facilities. The Trump administration made improving veterans’ access to healthcare one of its goals, with the president signing an executive order in May 2025 instructing the secretary of veterans affairs to plan ways to reduce wait times in clinics and develop a strategy to improve the delivery and quality of the existing services. The executive order did not mention opening new clinics, focusing instead on expanding office hours, offering weekend appointments, and increasing the use of virtual healthcare options.
But earlier this month, the VA boasted about the number of new clinics opened since Trump’s inauguration, framing it as proof that the administration is keeping its promise to veterans. The backlog of veterans waiting for VA benefits is down more than 70 percent since January 20, 2025, the agency said in a recent update, while VA’s average disability claims processing time is down 46 percent. Strictly regarding healthcare, the agency said it has completed a record 82,083,918 direct-care appointments in fiscal year 2025, up 4.1 percent from fiscal year 2024 and 59,989,662 community care appointments, up 12 percent from fiscal year 2024.
Since Trump’s inauguration, the agency has also offered veterans more than 3.4 million appointments outside of normal operating hours, in line with the president’s May 2025 executive order’s directions, including in the early morning, evening, and weekend. The administration’s efforts to improve veterans’ access to healthcare is reflected in the numbers of veterans who have enrolled in VA healthcare so far in 2026, the agency said. The 43 new healthcare clinics have opened in 25 states, including Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Washington, as well as the U.S. territory of Guam.
Ohio had the highest number of new clinics opened since January 2025, with a total of four. South Carolina and Virginia each saw three new clinics open, while California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Washington each saw two. The remaining states and Guam only saw one clinic opened since Trump’s return to office.
A full list of the locations is available at the bottom of this article. These numbers are helping the VA reframe its achievements in the wake of a report issued by the VA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) last month, which found that every single one of the nation’s 139 Veterans Health Administration (VHA) medical centers is experiencing severe occupational staffing shortages. The report found that in fiscal year 2026, which runs from October 1, 2025, through September 30, 2026, VHA officials reported a total of 4,712 severe occupational staffing shortages, with 97 percent of facilities having severe occupational staffing shortages for the role of medical officer and 86 percent severe shortages for nurse roles.
CNN also recently reported that VA still struggles to find healthcare workers to fully staff its 470,000 square-foot facility an hour south of Washington, D.C., which opened up in March 2025. CNN wrote earlier this month that the facility has a staff vacancy rate of nearly 40 percent, though the VA pushed back saying it is not a long-term issue. A spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the clinic is in its “opening in phases” and “met its hiring goals in the first three phases and is now in Phase 4.” “In less than two years since opening, the clinic has already completed more than 245,000 appointments and is ahead of schedule for enrolling new patients,” the spokesperson said.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
