First responders with post-traumatic stress disorder will be able to get quicker and easier access to benefits and treatment under legislation introduced today.

The law would create a presumption that PTSD in first responders is work related, removing the need for them to prove a causal link to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.

It would cover police officers, firefighters, paramedics, workers in correctional institutions, dispatchers of police, firefighter and ambulance services, and First Nations emergency response teams.

Labour Minister Kevin Flynn says it’s important to keep safe the people who keep everyone else safe.

He says first responders are at least twice as likely, compared to the general population, to suffer PTSD.

The presumption would apply to new claims, as well as pending claims and claims in the process of being appealed.