Opposition health spokeswoman Leanne Castley will call on the government to fund a permanent unit in the upcoming budget and she will also call for increased theatre time for surgery.

Plans to establish a permanent unit for the nation's capital were scuttled last year after authorities did not immediately expand the service after finding a successful candidate.

Doctors had lobbied the ACT government for more than three years for the service and more than 3000 people signed a petition calling for it.

It is very difficult to recruit surgeons in the incredibly rare sub-specialty, with only about 60 specialists in Australia. There was only one applicant when Canberra Health Services advertised for the position last year.

Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith has repeatedly said the government is committed to establishing a permanent unit despite offering a successful candidate only one full day of surgery a month.

The successful candidate, Leon Foster, had attempted to negotiate with authorities to extend this but Canberra Health Services was not forthcoming and he was forced to decline the offer.

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Instead of a permanent clinic, which was expected to start in January, authorities have continued to outsource the service to Sydney's Royal Hospital for Women. The Sydney service, operated by Associate Professor Ramanand Athavale, will only visit Canberra once a month for two days.

This is despite senior doctors within obstetrics and gynaecology expressing concerns about a fly-in, fly-out service presenting an "ongoing clinical risk".

The doctors said, in an April 2022 presentation, it had created fragmented care and there were "multiple instances of delayed treatment" and "poor outcomes".

Another senior doctor also said the partnership was "placing a strain on the friendship" with the Sydney hospital due to the increasing workload in the territory.

Ms Castley said the announcement about the travelling clinic was a "desperate measure to save face" by Ms Stephen-Smith.

"Canberra Health Services were warned about this," she said.

"And they had been lobbied and they had every opportunity to employ an expert in the field and they didn't come up with the amount of surgery hours that Canberrans need.

"We definitely have the demand and unfortunately when push came to shove Canberra Health Services didn't offer the amount of surgeries that we need."

Freedom of information documents revealed that from July to November last year, the Royal Hospital for Women spent 149 hours operating on women with gynaecological cancers from Canberra and the surrounding region. This was in addition to 40 hours of operating time at Canberra Hospital.

Ms Castley will move a motion in the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday which will call for the government to fund the service in the 2023-24 budget. Ms Castley's motion will also call on the government to advertise for a full-time gynaecology oncologist and increase the theatre allocation to meet the demand.

There is a national recruitment process ongoing but this is not being advertised online. Instead, Canberra Health Services' talent acquisition team is looking for a specialist.

Ms Stephen-Smith has said the monthly clinic would make a strong contribution while the government's recruitment process continues.

"The ACT government is committed to operating a permanent and sustainable gynaecology oncology service in the ACT. This includes expanding our specialist nursing workforce for cancer care with two new full-time positions in the Cancer Supportive Care Team," she said.

The government committed $1.33 million over four years in the mid-year budget review for two new colorectal and gynaecological cancer specialist nurses.

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