Canberra's midwives and nurses have been encouraged to speak out after the ACT government extended the deadline on a parliamentary committee.
On August 3, the ACT Legislative Assembly created a committee after accepting a petition calling for a recovery plan for nursing and midwifery workers.
The petition by the nursing and midwifery union was signed by 2697 people.
However only one submission has been made since they were opened to the public on September 13.
The government is extending the deadline for submissions from December 9 until January 27, 2023.
Committee Chair, Greens MLA Johnathan Davis, said: "It is critically important that the committee provides solutions-focused recommendations to government.
"To do that, we need to learn from a range of experiences in order to present crucial evidence to scaffold the health and wellbeing of Canberra's nursing and midwifery workers."
The committee said it wanted to address concerns it said were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
"The committee knows that the last few years have seen all frontline healthcare workers, particularly nurses and midwives, facing stress, fatigue, and burnout," the committee said.
"The committee is keen to inquire into this issue and provide solutions-focused recommendations to Government with a particular focus on workforce planning, staff shortages and skill-mix issues".
When the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation petition was handed down on August 3, they claimed nurses had resorted to wearing incontinence pads to save time.
Nurses and midwives have told The Canberra Times they fear for patient safety amid staff shortages and an allegedly toxic culture in Canberra hospitals.
Health had the largest allocation of spending in the 2022-23 ACT budget with $2.2 billion committed.
- Named and anonymous submissions can be emailed to LACommitteeHCW@parliament.act.gov.au
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