Latest news with #HRSA
CBS News
12 hours ago
- Health
- CBS News
Deep staff cuts at a little-known federal agency pose trouble for droves of local health programs
A little-known federal agency that sends more than $12 billion annually to support community health centers, addiction treatment services, and workforce initiatives for America's neediest people has been hobbled by the Trump administration's staffing purges. The cuts are "just a little astonishing," said Carole Johnson, who previously led the Health Resources and Services Administration. She left the agency in January with the administration change and has described the sweeping staff cuts as a "big threat" to the agency's ability to distribute billions of dollars in grants to hospitals, clinics, nonprofits, and other organizations nationwide. Since February, about a quarter of workers at HRSA — including analysts, auditors, scientists, grant managers, and nursing consultants — have left, according to a KFF Health News analysis. The agency, headquartered in a nondescript gray-and-glass office building tucked into side streets in Rockville, Maryland, employed about 2,700 staffers in early 2025. Employees worked behind the scenes to manage and monitor thousands of projects nationwide that fund primary health providers, HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention, maternal and child care programs, rural hospitals, and workforce training. On the ground, HRSA's grants have helped create telehealth initiatives for mothers in rural New Mexico, funded workforce training for Indigenous nurses in South Dakota, and supported Healthy Start programs for expectant mothers and babies in places like rural Georgia. Ryan Alcorn, a co-founder and the chief executive of GrantExec, a company that helps organizations match and apply for funding, said every American benefits from the programs HRSA's funding supports: "When the safety net fails, hospitals become overwhelmed, unpaid costs rise, and premiums go up for everyone." Several former HRSA leaders, who have been in touch with employees, confirmed the magnitude of the cuts estimated by KFF Health News. Johnson said she believes the actual number of workers lost is larger. More than 700 workers were fired or chose to leave from February through the end of June. The analysis is based on data from the HHS employee directory, which may not include workers who opted out of being listed, and may not be an exact count of the worker roster, which is in flux. Johnson, who is now a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, and several other former employees interviewed by KFF Health News said they are concerned that specific programs will be eliminated, but also that reduced staffing could affect ongoing program oversight. The agency's workforce ethos, Johnson said, is one in which "if there were two people left at HRSA, they would work around the clock to try to get the money out." For at least one program, revealed during a tense moment on Capitol Hill in July, money to help low-income and minority students has already stopped flowing to colleges and universities. The Scholarship for Disadvantaged Students program, established through congressional legislation, helped schools pay for students to train to become dentists, physician assistants, midwives, and nurses — all of whom are in short supply in rural and some urban areas. Candice Chen, acting associate administrator of HRSA's health workforce bureau, confirmed the agency "did have competitions that were canceled." When U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) asked whether they were canceled by the Trump administration, Chen paused before speaking again: "Well, the funding decisions were made across the administration." Asked about the canceled funding, officials from several schools declined to comment. Patrick Gonzales, a spokesperson for the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley, said in an emailed statement that the school is "helping students navigate this transition with clarity and care." U.S. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) has called for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s resignation or firing, "whichever one comes first," saying there was "no defensible answer" to eliminating thousands of workers across federal agencies. In April, nearly a dozen Democratic senators sent a letter to Kennedy demanding answers about the mass firings, noting HRSA is the "primary agency tasked with improving access to health care for vulnerable populations." HHS did not respond to the senators' letter. Kennedy and the Department of Health and Human Services "has refused to answer basic questions about why the administration conducted mass firings in this office," said Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.). President Trump's proposed fiscal 2026 budget eliminates HRSA as well as some of its programs, including grants to rural hospitals, workforce training, Ryan White HIV/AIDS programs, and emergency medical services for children. HRSA spokesperson Andrea Takash said in an emailed response that HHS is "undertaking organizational changes that support multiple goals while ensuring continuity of essential services." HRSA continues to process new funding announcements and awards for the health centers, workforce programs, child and maternal health initiatives, and "many more of our critical programs and services," Takash said. HRSA's largest bureau supports thousands of community health centers that serve over 31 million people nationwide. Before the end of September, the agency's grants are still scheduled to pay out billions more to health clinics and other organizations nationwide. Cuts to health centers could come under more scrutiny because their funding has "a lot of bipartisan" support, said Celli Horstman, a senior research associate at the Commonwealth Fund, a health research nonprofit. HRSA's funding, which includes Section 330 grants, goes to "keeping the doors open" at federally qualified health centers nationwide, Horstman said. An additional 42% of health center funding comes from Medicaid, a federal and state insurance program that covers people with low incomes and those with disabilities, she said. Congress recently voted to reduce Medicaid funding. Joe Stevens, spokesperson for the Virginia Community Healthcare Association, said health centers are rethinking "how they do business" because of the Medicaid cuts and the increased administrative challenges faced when processing their HRSA grants, which have been more challenging to obtain since February. Virginia's health clinics treat about 400,000 people annually, Stevens said. "It's a system that's been in place for 50-plus years, and this is the first time they're having issues receiving their funds," he said, noting that clinics now must also provide an itemized list of how the money is to be used after grants have been approved. "Our health centers are understaffed, so having somebody to have to enter that information every two weeks is just more time," Stevens said. For months, HRSA staff across all departments have worked through changes to their technology systems and transitioned work to others as employees left their jobs. Workers have continued to process grants despite a February executive order that froze federal funding and a March announcement that HHS would lay off 10,000 workers and shut down entire agencies — including HRSA. One former employee said that, at this point, "all we're doing now is keeping the lights on." Michael Warren, who left the agency in June, ran HRSA's Maternal and Child Health Bureau. Warren described the bureau's staffing cuts as "substantial." The bureau awarded more than $628 million in grants between Oct. 1, 2024, and July 22, 2025, to programs that included providing block grants to states and funding home visiting programs, through which trained staffers work with families with young children. Warren, who is now the chief medical and health officer for the March of Dimes, said America faces a crisis as one of the "most dangerous places in the world to give birth among other high-income countries, and that shouldn't be the case." With tears brimming, Warren said his former employees "wake up every morning, they work all day, and they go to sleep every night thinking about what they can do for mothers, children, and families." For this article, KFF Health News calculated workforce reductions at the Health Resources and Services Administration using public information from the Department of Health and Human Services directory posted online. We compared the number and type of employees listed with HRSA in February to those in early July. Our employee totals exclude people listed as interns, fellows, student trainees, or volunteers. The directory is not an official count of HRSA employees, but it offers detailed snapshots of trends so far this year. Reporters also cross-checked the estimates with former employees. We'd like to speak with current and former personnel from the Department of Health and Human Services or its component agencies who believe the public should understand what's happening within the federal health bureaucracy. Please message KFF Health News on Signal at (415) 519-8778 or get in touch here. KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.
Fox News
23-07-2025
- Health
- Fox News
WATCH: Lawmaker shares personal experience as Congress weighs organ donation reforms
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., spoke to Fox News Digital on Tuesday about how his personal experience with organ transplantation has shaped his view of the system, which he said must ensure families are confident in it so they will not be afraid to donate much-needed organs. On Tuesday, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight held a hearing with Dr. Raymond Lynch, the Health Resources and Services Administration's (HRSA) chief of the organ transplant branch. Leaders of the Organ Procurement Organization (OPO) and the nonprofit organ sharing network that serves Kentucky, southwest Ohio and parts of West Virginia were also present. The investigation follows a shocking HRSA investigation that found hospitals and OPOs in Kentucky were allowing organ procurement processes to begin despite patients showing signs of life. The investigation ultimately found that since December 2024, out of 351 cases involving patients who had been authorized for organ procurement, but the organs were ultimately not recovered, 29% showed neurological signs not conducive to organ procurement. "My big concern is people will not – if they don't have confidence in the system – won't feel like they'll register as an organ donor," Guthrie said between panels at Tuesday's hearing. "People need to have confidence in the system, or at least know the questions to ask if they're in this end stage with their loved one," Guthrie continued. "Because when you're sitting there, and you're getting prepped to go get your next – hopefully, chance at life – you also, as you sit there, know that there's some other family in some other emergency room somewhere else having a different experience. And they are losing a loved one, but they're willing – the loved one, either pre-designated or they're willing to let their loved one live on by helping somebody else live." Guthrie's experience stems from his mother, who died waiting on a new liver. He recounted how she was, at one point, told they had found her a new liver, but when the surgeon went to go pick up the new organ, it was not in the adequate shape to be transplanted. Despite assurances that she was high on the list, Guthrie's mother never found an organ in time before declining so fast that neither the congressman nor any of his relatives could attempt a live-organ transplant procedure. The live procedure allows a living person to donate a part of their organ, which will later grow back but can help repair the damaged organ in the person receiving the partial transplant. Guthrie said that despite the alarming evidence uncovered by HRSA's investigation, he still intends to keep his donor status, adding "we need more people to donate." Currently, around 100,000 people are waiting for an organ transplant. While the HRSA investigation probed multiple cases, it highlighted one shocking case in particular where staff were so uncomfortable with commencing the organ procurement process as a result of visible signs of life that some refused to participate. At that point, after staff had witnessed tears rolling down the patient's face, the process eventually stopped, but not after the patient sat in the operating room getting prepped for organ donation for around 45 minutes. "This should never have gotten to the point of them being in the operating room," Guthrie said of the case. "There were a lot of indications this person was not going to die." Guthrie added that the issue is a bipartisan one and said the work will be done when confidence in the system has been shored up.
South China Morning Post
22-07-2025
- Health
- South China Morning Post
US begins organ-transplant reform as ‘signs of life' found before some retrievals
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has launched a reform of the organ-transplant system and threatened to close a major procurement body after a probe found premature attempts to start organ retrieval while patients showed signs of life. The investigation conducted by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), a division of HHS, examined 351 cases where organ donation was authorised but not completed. It found 73 patients had shown neurological signs incompatible with organ donation and at least 28 patients may not have been deceased at the time organ procurement was initiated, the HHS said in a statement on Monday. The probe also found evidence of poor neurologic assessments, questionable consent practices, and misclassification of causes of death in several cases, the agency said.
Yahoo
21-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
US begins organ-transplant reform as 'signs of life' found before some retrievals
(Reuters) -The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has launched a reform of the organ-transplant system and threatened to close a major procurement body, after a probe found premature attempts to start organ retrieval while patients showed signs of life. The investigation conducted by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), a division of HHS, examined 351 cases where organ donation was authorized but not completed. It found 73 patients had shown neurological signs incompatible with organ donation and at least 28 patients may not have been deceased at the time organ procurement was initiated, the HHS said in a statement on Monday. The probe also found evidence of poor neurologic assessments, questionable consent practices, and misclassification of causes of death in several cases, the agency said. The HHS has directed the national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) to report to regulators data concerning safety-related stoppages of organ donation called for by families, hospitals, or staff at organ procurement organizations. The HRSA has also said it would decertify Network for Hope - a federally funded organ procurement organization (OPO) that serves states including Kentucky, southwest Ohio, and part of West Virginia - if it does not comply with certain corrective actions. "Network for Hope looks forward to working collaboratively with HHS and HRSA and encourages the development of policies that support the betterment of the organ transplant system as a whole," CEO Barry Massa told Reuters in an email. The mandated actions include a root cause analysis of its failure to follow internal protocols and to develop policies to define donor eligibility criteria. It has also instructed the OPO to adopt a formal procedure allowing any staff member to halt a donation process in case of patient safety concerns. OPOs are not-for-profit organizations responsible for recovering organs from deceased donors for transplantation. The announcement comes after the New York Times on Sunday reported on premature attempts to remove organs from patients who exhibit signs of life. Solve the daily Crossword
Reuters
21-07-2025
- Health
- Reuters
US begins organ-transplant reform as 'signs of life' found before some retrievals
July 21 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has launched a reform of the organ-transplant system and threatened to close a major procurement body, after a probe found premature attempts to start organ retrieval while patients showed signs of life. The investigation conducted by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), a division of HHS, examined 351 cases where organ donation was authorized but not completed. It found 73 patients had shown neurological signs incompatible with organ donation and at least 28 patients may not have been deceased at the time organ procurement was initiated, the HHS said in a statement on Monday. The probe also found evidence of poor neurologic assessments, questionable consent practices, and misclassification of causes of death in several cases, the agency said. The HHS has directed the national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) to report to regulators data concerning safety-related stoppages of organ donation called for by families, hospitals, or staff at organ procurement organizations. The HRSA has also said it would decertify Network for Hope - a federally funded organ procurement organization (OPO) that serves states including Kentucky, southwest Ohio, and part of West Virginia - if it does not comply with certain corrective actions. "Network for Hope looks forward to working collaboratively with HHS and HRSA and encourages the development of policies that support the betterment of the organ transplant system as a whole," CEO Barry Massa told Reuters in an email. The mandated actions include a root cause analysis of its failure to follow internal protocols and to develop policies to define donor eligibility criteria. It has also instructed the OPO to adopt a formal procedure allowing any staff member to halt a donation process in case of patient safety concerns. OPOs are not-for-profit organizations responsible for recovering organs from deceased donors for transplantation. The announcement comes after the New York Times on Sunday reported on premature attempts to remove organs from patients who exhibit signs of life.
