People in Havelock North will be demanding to know why thousands got sick from campylobacter from the town's water supply.

Two meetings will be held so community can hear directly from the Hastings District Council and Hawke's Bay District Health Board over the campylobacter outbreak which has affected close to 5000 people.

Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule, Hawke's Bay District Health Board chief executive Kevin Snee, a medical officer of health and an infectious disease specialist will be among those speaking at the meeting.

Massey University's senior lecturer Dr Andy Asquith said Lawrence Yule needs to be very open with the public.

"The thing about the issue that struck me throughout is Lawrence Yule's availability and honesty, and his willingness to front up and answer questions.

"Lawrence Yule is not running and hiding. I think that is paramount here."

He said the crisis will no doubt become a major election issue in the region.

"There is a grave danger that this situation could be hijacked by a group of people that want to instigate change, without actually knowing what change they want to instigate - other than to obtain power for themselves."

Dr Asquith said it's paramount the community gets consistency and clear leadership during the entire handling of it.

Principal of Havelock North Primary School Nick Reed said they want to know when the boil water notice will be lifted, and whether chlorinated water is here to stay.

Carol Winters from Age Concern Havelock North said many residents are angry the council relied on social media to get out initial warnings about the contaminated water.

"Given that 25.3 per cent of people in this area are over 65 and that numbers growing. What processes are they putting in place to mitigate this if anything like this happens in the future."

Parent Catherine Wedd whose two children and husband got sick, is expecting a lot of raw emotion to come to the surface.

She said the authorities will face some tough questions, and raw emotions.

"Everybody is really really frustrated here. They feel that they want some answers from the council, and there needs to be some kind of accountability as well."

"There are a lot of emotional and very frustrated people out there. My neighbour was in hospital for three days on morphine and his whole family went down with gastro. They're really angered by the situation."

The meetings are being held at the Riverbend Christian Centre tonight and tomorrow from 5.30pm.

They will be live streamed on the website riverbend.org.nz