The rolling impact of Upper Murray bushfires, COVID-19 and border closures saw demand for services double, Albury-Wodonga mental health operations director Leah Wiseman revealed after an online screening from the film, Solstice.

"We've seen a doubling in (the number of) people contacting our triage service," Dr Wiseman said during panel discussions, which included Professor Patrick McGorry, film-maker Helen Newman and Winter Solstice co-founder Stuart Baker.

"We've seen a doubling of people presenting to the Emergency Department; and unfortunately it's taken some time for us to be able to meet their needs."

A new access and entry service for mental health, that started July 1, has provided active data on the impact of the crisis.

Dr Wiseman said while there was an obvious increase in demand with COVID-19, there had been another spike specific to border closures.

And while the data "is only a small part of the overall picture of mental health in our community", she said a doubling in demand was a "pretty dramatic" impact.

"The complexity of bushfires and then COVID-19 - and given the ongoing issue we have worldwide from a mental health perspective - has meant it's been a perfect storm of factors that have made it really difficult for people," Dr Wiseman said.

"I'm struggling to think of a community that's been harder struck by the events of 2020 in Australia than this Border community, given our proximity to fires, the border closure and all the other things that have come with COVID."

Professor McGorry said economists were warning mental ill-health and mental illness generally was the "shadow pandemic" unfolding around the world.

And he said there may be more deaths in Australia from this "shadow" pandemic than the virus.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data showed there had been about 60 deaths from suicide in this local area in the past five years, Prof McGorry said.

"There is something like that (number) in every community in Australia," he said.

"It's not a COVID-related thing, although there has been a surge with COVID; this has been an endemic situation of preventable deaths of people in the prime of life."

Yet still the conversation around suicide is "muffled".

"People are still not comfortable about making the suicide endemic situation known even though the Prime Minister has actually put it right at the top of the agenda," he said.

"It's still being muffled by the people who should be empowering him to act."

Dr Wiseman said if there was one thing 2020 had taught us it was the importance of connection - and hope.

"A mentally healthy community is a connected one," she said.

"One of the reasons this year has been so challenging is because that capacity and our reliance on connection has been really fraught for so many people."