The Trump administration's new Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Doug Collins, paid a visit to Eugene Thursday.
Collins toured the Eugene Health Care Center, a facility run by the Department of Veterans Affairs. He recognized staff members there for outstanding achievements.
The visit comes after Collins detailed plans to cut around 80,000 people from the VA, or around 15% of the department's workforce. Collins told reporters Thursday that the final count may differ.
"The VA will be working that to make sure we have the proper number to make sure veterans are taken care of," he said.
Collins said he wants to target bureaucracy in his cuts, and employees providing direct care to patients shouldn’t be concerned about their jobs.
“That's why the Secretary of VA is standing in this facility right now, is to tell our clinicians here, to tell the people in this hospital, you're doing the job that you're hired to do," said Collins. "This is what I want you to be doing.”
Bill Duncan, the Oregon State President of the Vietnam Veterans of America, said he spoke with Collins during his visit.
Duncan said he asked for help on a proposal to build a veterans nursing home in Roseburg, which would supply around 150 new beds.
Duncan said the project has secured state funding, but needs the VA's support. He told KLCC his conversation with Collins went well.
"I was thought it was very, very open minded," said Duncan.
Staffers for Oregon's U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle and Sen. Ron Wyden were also in attendance.
Wyden previously criticized Collins' planned cuts in a joint letter with other U.S. Senators in March. The lawmakers wrote that it's "blatantly dishonest to claim veterans’ healthcare and benefits will not be impacted by the termination of up to 83,000 employees."
Collins' appearance in Eugene Thursday appears to be the first public visit by a high-level Trump official during the President's second term.
