A group of fundraising first responders stopped in at Broken Hill on Saturday as part of the Heart2Herat (H2H) Walk, officially marking the halfway mark of their 3000km journey to shine a light on the issue of mental health and wellbeing of first responders.
During their stay in the Silver City, they took part in their fifth First Responder Engagement Day (FRED) at the RFDS Wellbeing Place on Blende St.
Heart2Heart member Stephen Hopkins took the opportunity to address the crowd and inform them of the reason for the walk, and the issues at hand.
“We have 400,000 volunteer First Responders in Australia. The government gets their service for free, yet they do not provide adequate mental health treatments. No accurate figures exist on how many suicides by first responders occur, because the government will not fund a study,” Mr Hopkins told the crowd.
