Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack said the government needed to deliver fair access to COVID vaccines, equipment and medical personnel to all Australians, in his regional and rural budget address in Canberra on Thursday.

"More doctors in the regions is our goal," Mr McCormack said.

That need includes vulnerable remote communities, he added.

While the budget was investing more in primary health, hospital, aged care, Indigenous peoples' health and mental health, the issue of attracting doctors was one that keeps coming up.

Regional Health Minister Mark Coulton was asked about the shortages of doctors in regions at a media conference with Dr John Hall, president of the Rural Doctors Association of Australia.

"Look, there are shortages - it's a recognised problem, and we are addressing it," Mr Coulton said.

"What we are seeing is that we've got a large cohort of doctors approaching retirement, and we've recognized that we do have a lot coming through the pipeline."

The rural GP pathway will grow by an extra 100 trainees this year to 1400, and 700 of those will do their training in regional Australian hospitals.

"One of the challenges we have is that short term solutions sometimes exacerbate the problem and at the moment where locums [temporary worker] are getting paid at far higher rates than than doctors that are committed permanently, does create a perverse outcome," Mr Coulton said.

"We need to change the dynamic that working in health in regional Australia is actually a career enhancing move, rather than some sort of punishment for coming second at university."

The dynamic of the rural workforce had changed considerably over recent years, he said.

More innovative models of employment would need to be explored Mr Coulton observed, noting more graduates coming through were female and by the time they become fully graduated other life decisions were becoming relevant, "having families, finding partners."

Dr Hall said part of the solution to getting more doctors into rural and remote Australia was recognition of rural medicine as a speciality.

"When we lose a doctor in a rural community, you're also losing your emergency doctor, you're losing your maternity doctor, you're losing your medical in-patient doctor," Dr Hall said.

He said there were about half the number of doctors per capita in rural and remote Australia than communities in the city enjoy, but more funding for the National Rural Generalist Pathway to see more parity between the urban and country areas.

"This National Rural Generalist Pathway structured and supported training into rural practice, early exposure in their career to rural practice, will go a long way to actually improving the workforce."

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