Public inpatient and emergency services at Naracoorte Hospital are being provided by locum doctors after a contract dispute erupted last week with the Kincraig Medical Clinic (KMC).
Acting Country Health SA chief executive Rebecca Graham said a standard GP contract widely adopted across regional South Australia was still on offer.
However she said she was willing to revisit the finer details of the proposed agreement and would prefer that the clinic doctors remained as service providers to the hospital.
“We are still working within the standard rural GP agreement, however there is final detail within that agreement that relates to specific schedules,” she said.
“We would prefer that they were the provider of services within that hospital and that’s going to be the subject of the discussion.
“From where we are now, we’re just really pleased, we’re very hopeful for the outcome of the discussions.”
Last week the ABC learned three doctors from the clinic had their “privileges” to work at the hospital withdrawn and were replaced with a single locum, who was on call for “72 hours” at a time.
The doctors said that instead of three doctors being collectively paid $545 a day to be on call for hospital emergencies, the Government was advertising for locum positions and offering them $3,600 each a day.
Dr Jeff Taylor, from KMC, said the locum had replaced a doctor, an obstetrics doctor and an anaesthetic doctor on call from his clinic.
Ms Graham last week confirmed that the cost of the employed locum averaged $1,600 a day.