The Rural Doctors Association of South Australia says it is disappointed about the outcome of contract negotiations with Country Health SA.
Association president Scott Lewis said it still did not endorse new contracts for general practitioners to work in country hospitals.
He said some issues around fee collection and recognition of training had been improved but not sufficiently and the CPI increase in the contract remained insufficient.
Dr Lewis said he hoped the association could maintain a relationship with Country Health SA.
“This sounds extremely final in terms of the contract, we have had a long relationship with Country Health, having regular meetings with Country Health management and we’ll be certainly looking to have those continue,” he said.
He said he was disappointed with the discussions in recent months.
“Discussions before that were really quite good, really quite collaborative but discussions since that time have been extremely one-sided,” he said.
“From our point of view we’ve been discussing, we don’t feel that Country Health have been listening.”
Doctors have until May 29 to sign the new contracts.
Country Health SA said it was confident the remaining 50 per cent of doctors who had not signed the new contracts would do so by the deadline at the end of next month.