Owen Dyer , 2025-06-23 15:25:00
Byelaws governing hiring, firing, and treatment in the largest integrated US healthcare system, the Veterans Administration (VA), no longer contain text explicitly barring discrimination against staff and job applicants on the grounds of “lawful partisan political affiliation.” The changes were seemingly made without consultation with doctors and others working under the VA.
The new version1 of the section governing “decisions regarding medical staff membership” also lacks text from the previous rule,2 which forbade discrimination based on national origin, sexual orientation, marital status, age, “physical or mental handicap when the individual is qualified to do the work,” and “membership or non-membership in a labour organisation.”
The section governing “acceptable behaviour” in the treatment of patients—which in the previous version barred “discriminating on the basis of race, age, colour, sex, religion, national origin, politics, marital status, or disability”—was edited to remove the references to age, national origin, politics, marital status, and disability, and now only explicitly bars discrimination based on race, colour, sex, and religion.
The …
