The young teenagers had both attempted suicide recently but appropriate Border support services weren't available when needed.

"The line that we rang - which our GP told us to ring - told us that 'We'll triage you, don't expect a response within a week, it will be longer than that, so try to ring a few private ones and book in, it will take three to four months, but you need to be in that system because we don't know if we've got enough people to help you because we're all overloaded', so something's wrong," one mother said.

As the other parent observed, "the system is broken".

About 50 people attended the discussion at Anzac House, led by Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention David Coleman and Farrer MP Sussan Ley.

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Workforce shortages proved a major concern for many, with Mr Coleman saying a new national strategy would be released within weeks.

"That has a range of different initiatives around training, around scholarships and around encouraging more people in to the mental health workforce," he said.

"There's huge numbers of jobs available, it's a great career option and it's something that we should all encourage people to enter."

NSW Rural Fire Service senior psychologist Jodi Barton asked how they would keep these workers.

"Every regional and particularly remote area just cannot recruit staff and then we cannot retain them," she said.

Nush Abikhair, of Mind Australia, said any new employees had often come from other support services.

"We're making a hole in another spot, we have a finite workforce so that just creates a problem somewhere else," she said.

Karina Kerr, of headspace Albury-Wodonga, said the numbers showed the extent of the Border's issues.

"In 2021 we have 14 Medicare-rebated registered social workers within a 100km radius of (postcode) 3690," she said.

"If I expand that out you get 30, that includes Canberra and Sale. If we look at other geographically-located areas, they've got 391."

Murray Primary Health Network chief executive Matt Jones called for more government understanding of regional health issues.

"In metropolitan areas, the additional funding increases access to services but in regional Australia we have a lot of difficulty in access to services because of limitations of workforce, distance, time, just smaller centres surrounding larger regional centres and being able to have the type of system that we need," he said.

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