After the Christchurch earthquakes all health bodies looked at their emergency communication systems. MidCentral Health now has a network of an emergency radio network across its district. The Otaki Medical Centre is one of the sites which is linked up to the hospital along with other general practices. This means that health and emergency workers are no longer reliant on phone networks which can be serverley disrupted during natural disasters.
MDHB and Central PHO can now communicate directly with these facilities during both power, and normal communication outages. The system was installed by Palmerston North communications company Over and Out. An important aspect of their network repeater stations is having solar backup power, should there be a major power outage. The radios also have back up power supplies as part of the system.