Natchez Regional Medical Center’s secretive demise should illustrate just how important having public access to matters of public interest is.

For years and years, we’ve complained about NRMC’s long history of hiding behind a loophole in the state’s Sunshine Laws and interpreting other public hospital rules to their own benefit, often at the penalty of public access.

Members of the public and even Adams County Board of Supervisors often had to beg for information from the hospital that the county owned.

A small select group of people on the inside and their overpriced attorneys and consultants arrogantly took the attitude that they knew best and proceeded to drive the county’s single largest asset squarely into a brick wall.

Not once did they ever raise their hands and say, “We need help. We’re in over our heads, and we need some professional help to properly manage the hospital.”

Doing that, and being much more open with both members of the public and elected officials may not have made a difference in the hospital’s ultimate outcome but would have certainly made a difference in public attitude toward the hospital’s demise.

If all goes as plans, the county will effectively be out of the hospital business this week — though it will still be a creditor of the hospital’s liquidation trust for approximately two more years.

The sale to Community Health Systems, while ugly on the front end, may prove to be the best thing that could happen for the future of healthcare in our community. We welcome CHS’s increased presence in our community — the company already owns Natchez Community Hospital — and we hope they’re open about their plans, both short-term and long-term.