Premier Health closing labor and delivery unit at Upper Valley Medical Center

TROY — Premier Health will be discontinuing its labor and delivery services at Upper Valley Medical Center (UVMC) in Troy, a spokesperson for Premier confirmed.

Operations will cease on Feb. 29 and the last delivery will take place on or before Feb. 21.

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Premier laid out several reasons for the decision, including a “declining birth rate locally and outmigration of births.”

The number of births at UVMC last year was half the number the hospital saw less than a decade ago, averaging out to fewer than one delivery a day.

In 2022, Premier reported that 70 percent of patients living in Miami County left the county for obstetrics delivery services.

The healthcare network also cited challenges with physician recruitment, which are “industry-wide, especially at smaller community-based hospitals, resulting in locums expenses that are not sustainable.”

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“While the decision to close the hospital’s labor and delivery unit was not easy, these factors all made the need for it obvious,” a spokesperson said in a release.

As for those currently working at this unit at UVMC, a spokesperson said they’ll be working to find “comparable positions within the health system.”

“Our gratitude goes out to the labor and delivery and special care nursery staff, many of whom have devoted decades of their career to playing a role in the delivering of babies in Miami County,” Kevin Harlan, president of Upper Valley Medical Center and Atrium Medical Center, said. “This is a special role, and they handle it with reverence and as the privilege that it is.”

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