TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Outside the Bill Young Medical Center, a few veterans held signs that read “enough is enough”, “hands off veterans services”, and “save VA health care.”

Jay Alexander with the Pinellas County Democratic Veterans Caucus organized the rally and sent a message to VA Secretary Doug Collins.

“Do not eliminate all these good American citizens and employees,” Alexander said.

Collins participated in a town hall with Senator Ashley Moody at American Legion Post 138 Wednesday. Veterans shared their stories and worries about the care they receive.

“The mental health aspect of the VA is broken,” said one person in the crowd.

“I had my whole shoulder ripped out July of last year. I, as a medical doctor, it took me up until February of this year to finally get the surgery through the VA,” said another veteran.

Collins said stories like these are why he wants to take a new approach.

“If it takes 10 pieces of paper to get somebody health care, I want to know how we can do it in five pieces of paper,” Collins said.

Many veterans wanted clarity after the Department of Veteran Affairs sent out an internal memo in March that announced massive employee cuts. It said the department wants to take a “pragmatic, disciplined approach to identify and eliminate waste.”

“When the administration says their goal is to reduce VA staffing by as much as 80,000 people, our first thought is what is that going to do to the quality of service,” said Keith Poynor with Post 138. “We all share the same concern. We want the best possible care for veterans that we can provide.”

Collins gave an example of spending, saying how the government has spent $588 million on suicide prevention.

“We spent billions of dollars, almost $3 billion dollars in the last six-seven years and that number is not changing. That is no satisfactory to me,” Collins said. “And by the way, we’ve not cut anybody that’s actually working on patients or taking care of our disability claims. The only ones right now that are actually gone are the ones who chose to take an early retirement. That’s the only ones that are gone. And I protected over 300,000 positions in our hospitals.”

He said he wants to put funding into programs that fix problems for veterans. Alexander said he’s seen cuts happening in the last week and believes more are coming.

“Well let’s see what happens in the next couple of months,” Alexander said.

The memo said a department-wide review will be finished by May 9 and the VA will publish its reorganization plan in June.