House Passes HERO Act to Provide Mental Health Resources to First Responders

The photo shows the outside of the U.S. Capitol.
Photo/Jeff Frankel

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Helping Emergency Responders Overcome (HERO) Act this week. The bipartisan legislation introduced by Reps. Ami Bera, MD (D-CA) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) would provide critical mental health resources to our nation’s first responders and health care providers.

The HERO Act directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to report to Congress each year on first responder suicide rates, including identifying risk factors, possible interventions and recommended interventions for further study. It also requires HHS to develop and distribute best practices on the prevention and treatment of posttraumatic stress among first responders.

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“Our nation’s police officers, fire fighters, and EMTs put themselves in harm’s way every day to protect our community, so it’s our obligation to be there for them in their time of need by ensuring they have access to life-saving mental health care,” said Rep. Bera. “While our first responders already experience higher mental health stress and higher risk of suicide than many other professions, responding to the COVID-19 pandemic is only increasing those burdens.”

The bill also creates two grant programs. The first is a program to train individual fire fighters and paramedics to provide mental health support to their peers in their organizations. The other grant would train health care providers to serve a similar role in their hospitals and practices.

“Our nation’s firefighters and emergency medical responders are heroes who risk their lives each day protecting and serving our communities. They routinely witness and experience catastrophic damage, significant injuries, and tragic loss of life, often leading to traumatic stress, mental health issues, and at times, even vulnerability to suicide,” said Rep. Fitzpatrick. “For too long, the challenges facing our nation’s firefighters and emergency medical responders have gone unnoticed and untreated. We must, and we can do more to ensure our first responders have the tools and resources they need to address mental and behavioral health needs.”

More than three years ago, Rep. Bera met with Sacramento-area fire chiefs who told him that firefighters face high and increasing rates of suicide. They shared with Rep. Bera that their own colleagues had died by suicide and that the first responder community lacked the mental health resources to tackle this crisis. After investigating, Rep. Bera learned that the United States does not track how many firefighters and paramedics die by suicide each year.

Rep. Bera worked with local and national first responder groups to introduce the HERO Act in 2018, which received support from Sacramento-area first responders and from the International Association of Firefighters, the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians, the American Association of Suicidology, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and the Firefighter Behavioral Health Alliance.

“Fire fighters and emergency medical responders deal with traumatic events on the job every day. It is a fact that the toll of these experiences are the direct cause of psychological injuries and problems with behavioral health. Sadly, we have lost some of our sister and brother members to these job-related hazards,” said Edward A. Kelly, General President of the International Association of Fire Fighters. “Thank you to Representative Bera for his strong leadership in tackling these important issues head on and for his instrumental role in the passage of the HERO Act.”

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