VA begins to reverse the cancellations of contracts that support medical care, facilities

A day after the Department of Veterans Affairs celebrated an estimated $ 2 billion in savings in canceled contracts, the agency began to reverse some of the cancellations that may have affected the medical care of veterans and other benefits, according to multiple sources familiar with the agency and records of the agency reviewed by ABC News.

“We were receiving millions of dollars in contracts to create things as PowerPoint slides and minutes of meetings,” Va Doug Collins secretary said Tuesday. “Millions of dollars in contracts for ‘training and training’.”

“Not feed the line of what DC wants to sell you,” he added. “We are returning money to the health of the veterans, back to the benefits of veterans. And do not let sources without name, even the senators and the members of the Chamber, who want to scare you and the media, who want to perpetuate the line. We are taking care of veterans.”

But the hundreds of contracts established for cancellation included some for legally required technical inspections of medical equipment that produce radiation in the VA facilities, including CT scanners, magnetic resonance machines and dental X -ray units.

Without annual inspections, some of which are made by contractors in part to save the agency, VA employees cannot use the equipment.

“We are a good business for them,” said a contractor of multiple agencies contracts, including several that were initially canceled, and then reversed Wednesday afternoon. “They cannot afford to have done it at home.”

Canceling contracts “100% will affect attention,” said an ABC News official. “Yeah [the machines] Receiving service or a part is replaced, they must also be inspected. “

When comments were asked on Tuesday, a VA spokesman said to ABC News: “We are reviewing the various VA contracts, and we will cancel many focused on critical things that are not mission as PowerPoint slides, executive support and training. Our review is continuous and not definitive.”

“We will not eliminate any benefit or service to veterans or beneficiaries of VA, and there will be no negative impact for medical care, beneficiaries or beneficiaries of VA,” added the spokesman. “We are always going to take care of veterans in the period of Va.”

Some of the contracts marked for the termination on Monday included contracts to provide benefits services for employees and labor to tens of thousands of VA employees and their families. Others included the work that supervised the elimination of hazardous waste, carrying out security inspections in VA medical facilities, support for cancer programs and burial services, according to the review of the agency’s records by ABC News.

Some of the contracts marked for the termination on Monday included contracts to provide benefits services for employees and labor to tens of thousands of VA employees and their families. Others included the work that supervises the elimination of hazardous waste and the performance of security inspections in the VA medical facilities.

Many of these contracts are labeled as some consulting variations, a radical category of federal contracts that the Government Efficiency Department team has been aggressively as part of its efforts to reduce the expenditure of the unnecessary government.

“Everyone may agree that there are waste, probably fat, and there may be some fraud,” Arthur Mabbett, a disabled veteran and CEO of Mabbett & Associates, a government contractor with dozens of contracts with the VA and other agencies, told ABC News.

“To do it commercially, instead of pure chaos, which is what they are doing at this time, it would be a better approach,” said Mabbett, whose company has not been terminated by his stop orders from Wednesday night.

Part of that work includes working with VA facilities to ensure that expansion and renewal projects comply with federal environmental law.

Senator Richard Blucenthal, D-Conn., On Tuesday he criticized the previous movement of Collins to cancel contracts, saying that many of those contracts provide “critical and direct services” to veterans.

“To say that canceling these services will not affect the care and benefits of veterans is another unrealistic promise of Collins,” Blumenthal wrote in a statement. “Do not be mistaken: this is just another reckless decision of cost reduction that will damage veterans and taxpayers in the coming years.”

The agency’s leaders ordered employees to start finishing hundreds of contracts on Monday, with some stop orders issued that night.

Some of those work orders have already been rescinded, one of several efforts led in Dune throughout the federal government that have been slowed or partially reversed by several leaders of the agency.

“I like what they are doing, I only think they made a mistake and that they need to solve it,” a contractor told ABC News about Doge’s general efforts. “If you go quickly, I will be happy. And if you have been three to four months, I will not be.”

The VA has already gone through two rounds of layoffs: the first affected 1,000 workers, and the second, announced this week, affected 1,400 “critical positions without missions,” according to the agency’s statement.

Some of the finished employees were asked to return to work days later, workers told ABC News.

Other layoffs may be on the horizon. On Wednesday, the Trump administration ordered the agencies to begin preparing for the dismissals and reorganizations of “large -scale” and present plans to do so to the Office of Administration and Budget before March 13, according to a memorandum obtained by ABC News.

-Aorin Kim and Nathan Luna de ABC News contributed to this report.