Medically dependent customers
There are several things you should do if you have a medical dependency that relies on electricity.
Firstly, you need to register directly with your retailer — for example, Contact, Mercury, Genesis, etc. They hold your account information including contact details, and pass that to us as the lines company.
We strongly encourage all medically dependent customers to have an emergency response plan in place and ensure your support network — such as family, neighbours, or carers — are aware of what to do in an outage.
If you don’t have a plan, we recommend speaking to your healthcare provider as soon as possible.
More information about what to do if you, or someone you know, relies on electricity as a medically dependent customer is available online. You can also talk to your electricity retailer and to your health care provider about making a response plan.
FAQS
Read our frequently asked questions for medically dependent customers
If it's an emergency, please call 111 right away.
If you haven’t already, please enact your emergency response plan while crews work to restore power.
If you don’t have a plan, we recommend speaking to your healthcare provider as soon as possible.
We understand how stressful a power cut can be, especially when you rely on electricity for health reasons.
You can stay up to date by checking the Vector Outage Centre at vector.co.nz/outages.
We’re sorry you received this message in error. We rely on data provided by your electricity retailer to identify customers who are medically dependent and occasionally this information is not up to date.
If your status has changed, we recommend contacting your retailer to update your information.
You’ll need to register directly with your retailer — for example, Contact, Mercury, Genesis, etc.
They hold your account information including contact details, and pass that to us as the lines company.
Even if you are registered, you will still need to have an emergency response plan that you can enact anytime that the power goes out.
We understand this can be frustrating. There may be a delay between when your retailer updates your details and when that data flows through to our systems.
Please re-check with your retailer.
No - only your retailer can register you as a medically dependent customer. Please contact your retailer directly to register or update your status.
We strongly encourage all medically dependent customers to have an emergency response plan in place and ensure your support network – such as family, neighbours, or carers – is aware of what to do in an outage.
We work as safely as possible to restore power to the greatest number of customers in the shortest time possible, but we cannot guarantee any particular timeframe. That’s why having a response plan is so important.
You are medically dependent if you are a residential consumer who depends on electricity for critical medical support. If you think you are, or might be, medically dependent, you should contact your electricity retailer to discuss and register your medical situation.
In any emergency situation, call 111.
Your response plan is a plan for what you need to do to be prepared for a power outage. It could include having a backup power supply such as a generator or it could include going to a friend or family member’s home who has power or, in an emergency, calling 111.
If you don’t have a backup plan and you are medically dependent, we recommend you speak to your healthcare provider as soon as possible to assist you in making one, as there is always a risk of power outages.
In any emergency situation, call 111.