The Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand has raised concerns about the government's new fuel response categories noting that funeral and deathcare is not mentioned at all in the list of critical users.

While hopeful their services would be included within the health or emergency categories, the Association is concerned not naming them specifically will lead to uncertainty if the country moves to phase 4 in the fuel response plan.

Chief Executive, Gillian Boyes, says the same mistake happened during Covid, leading to funeral directors and embalmers struggling to get access to PPE, transport across lockdown borders and, initially, priority vaccinations.

“Officials have taken the care to specify animal transport, care and rescue, but haven’t specifically named funeral and deathcare services,” says Ms Boyes.

“Most deaths in New Zealand happen either in rest homes or personal homes and neither of those facilities have the ability to store the dead,” says Ms Boyes. “It is essential our members have unlimited access to fuel in order to perform this urgent service.”

Ms Boyes also notes the proposed self-monitoring of the rules could lead to issues at the pump.

“While a hearse is pretty obvious, most of the driving work happens in discreet, unmarked cars. You can imagine the disapproval funeral directors would face at the pump filling these large vehicles. It’s essential they can point to a list where they are specifically named as a critical user.”

Ms Boyes comments there are some 36,000 deaths in New Zealand a year.

“This seems to be a big sector to have ignored. We have been providing feedback to government and officials since the crisis emerged. It’s incredibly frustrating to once again have our essential service to New Zealanders over-looked.”

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