Two Riverland Medical Center board members said last week that no official plans had been made for the hospital’s future.

However, at least a few people, who seem to have first-hand knowledge, have suggested that while no official plans have been made, some folks are lobbying hard for their own, unofficial plans.

The unofficial plans being quietly worked are the ones that worry me.

Call me skeptical, but I simply no longer trust public hospitals after the complete and utter mess that occurred at Natchez Regional Medical Center.

Comparing the two facilities isn’t fair, though. Natchez Regional was horribly mismanaged and unprofitable for years — mostly due to inept management.

Riverland seems far better managed  and seems to be making money. To be fair to NRMC, the federal health care cards are stacked in Riverland’s favor.

Riverland is rigged to be in better shape than NRMC. Riverland is designated as a critical access hospital, meaning it receives a higher reimbursement rate from Medicare. That greatly helps the hospital financially.

So direct comparisons aren’t accurate, but a key parallel seems to have occurred in both hospital situations — a lack of communication between the hospital’s leadership and the official government entity that appoints hospital board members.

In Adams County’s case, county supervisors should have simply forced the matter more and demanded accountability more quickly in the process.

In the parish, apparently the same communication problem exists, which has prompted the Concordia Parish Police Jury to seek a meeting Monday with the hospital’s board to simply get to the bottom of what all the plans are for the two layers of feasibility studies and the myriad of rumors surrounding the hospital’s public and behind-closed-doors plans.

Police jurors have asked for answers from the hospital’s administration and board members. Good for the police jurors for sticking up for what is right and trying to figure out what’s happening, even if doing so ruffles a few feathers.

Several Ferriday residents have reached out to me over the last week and said, effectively: “Please don’t let them move our hospital.” Usually, their second comment was something in the neighborhood of: “Why in the world would the hospital even consider moving?”

Their question — and subsequent opinions — makes for a good topic of discussion.

Usually, you don’t fix something until it’s broken — or appears to be headed in that direction — so logic follows, why would Riverland think about moving toward Vidalia, which is one of several unofficial options that no one seems to want to claim.

The cities of Vidalia and Ferriday have been like squabbling stepsiblings for years. When necessary to play well together, they do. But mostly they don’t like each other much.

Vidalia tends to treat Ferriday as the cousin they don’t want to admit to knowing in public, and it’s easy to see why — Ferriday had a complete void of sound government leadership for years. Even the much discussed Ferriday water woes are being fixed with the help of federal money.

Regardless of how the two cities feel about each other, the potential of moving Riverland to Vidalia needs to be put on the public table, if true, and fully discussed and considered before any additional decisions or plans are made.

To not do so may very well cause our area not to learn from the multi-million dollar mistakes of Natchez Regional.

Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.