Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital’s highly ranked labor and delivery unit, designed and staffed to handle 1,200 to 1,300 births per year, is currently losing more than $3 million annually due to a lack of babies.
More than 1,200 babies per year were born to Indian River County residents in 2023 and 2024, but due to a complex set of demographic, insurance and market factors, nearly 400 moms per year delivered outside our county, draining most of the well-insured moms and babies out of Vero.
Fifty-two percent of the babies delivered at the Vero hospital during this period are born to uninsured moms or moms on Medicaid…