Have you ever stopped to wonder how much wheel spinning goes on in the Miss-Lou?

Recently, we’ve burned up valuable community “rubber” with both Natchez hospitals trying to one-up the other by discounting services to county employees in what’s arguably a no-win situation.

County-owned Natchez Regional Medical Center started the issue by attempting to provide an incentive for county employees to use NRMC’s facilities instead of competing hospitals.

Then NRMC’s across-the-street rival, privately operated Natchez Community Hospital, jumped on board saying, essentially, “what’s fair is fair; we’ll do the same.”

Who could blame them for trying to stay competitive?

Now Regional is crying foul and the bickering continues. Unfortunately, none of the wheel spinning does a darned thing to promote better healthcare in the region and that’s a shame.

What we need now is for the two hospitals to stop viewing the other as its nemesis and start working together for the betterment of all.

A great place to start would be to have both hospital leadership teams work with the city, county and business communities on strategies to recruit physicians to the area.

With the current mood, however, that won’t happen anytime soon, presumably out of a fear over what may happen if the newly recruited physicians were to favor one hospital over the other.

It’s an unproductive cycle that has been going on for years here.

We’re still stuck in a rut when it comes to physician recruitment — something both hospitals have been working hard independently on for years.

Imagine what could happen if the collective hands were unclenched and began working together instead of gunning the throttle in a futile attempt to gain traction on the other?