Shorter waiting times for tattooed blood donors

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Shorter waiting times for tattooed blood donors
September 2010
Claire Connelly
Reportage

Every year, one in three people will need a blood transfusion, but the Red Cross struggles to find even one in 30 people to donate blood.

Yet within our community there’s a great untapped resource of people for whom needles are not a problem – and the Red Cross already has their contact details.

Over the last three years, less than half of the 21,848 people who were deferred from giving blood for twelve months after being tattooed returned to donate blood again when the waiting period was up.

The Red Cross recently cut that waiting period to six months, but they have not contacted the deferred candidates to inform them of the change.

“No one contacted me about the changed waiting period,” says regular blood donor, Kate Fox, a sub-editor at Pacific Magazines.

“I was told I would have to wait until next September before I could donate again,” she says.

Fox has only been able to donate blood twice in the last two years since getting her tattoos.

“I always thought that after having a tattoo you had to wait 12 months before giving blood.”

Fox has a very rare blood type. She is one of just 15 per cent of Australians whose blood type is A Negative.

It’s probably fitting then that her first tattoo, located down the right side of her back, reads, ‘to thine own self be true.’

“I think it’s important to give blood personally because I have a really rare blood type – it’s A-Negative with RH [rhesus factor] in it. The only person in my family that has it is my grandfather and the only blood I can receive is A-Negative or O-Negative, which is the third rarest blood type, only 15 per cent of the population have this blood type.”

Blood donation is a responsibility Fox takes very seriously, and she wishes the Red Cross would do more to let people know the waiting time to donate post-ink has changed.

“I do get stuff in the mail from them, but they haven’t actually personally said to come back and give blood now because 12 months have passed since you got your tattoo.”

“Most of my friends have tattoos, like little ones on their ankles or one on their shoulder and they probably think they can’t give blood for a year afterwards. So definitely, they should do some kind of ad campaign. Even if when they do send out literature, if you are a registered blood donor just pop something in there like a pamphlet in the mail,” says Fox.

Last week the Red Cross put out an urgent call for blood donations, but some people in the tattoo community believe the Blood Service should be doing more to encourage donors.

“I think the Red Cross steer clear of the tattoo industry”, says Ashely Clissdale, former accounts manager at Australian Tattoo magazine, “because they think there’s too much infection, but there’s not. It’s the same as any other medical practice.”

An enthusiastic collector of body art, Clissdale has experienced firsthand the changing perception of people with tattoos.

With a giant Buddha on her right arm, a butterfly with the face of a 1920’s gypsy on her left, the Strawberry Shortcake character on her right hand and a purple mythical creature on her right leg, Clissdale was used to attracting the attention of disapproving parents or curious teens.

“It’s different now,” she says, “You don’t have to be a bikie-girl just because you have a tattoo. It doesn’t mean that you’re this stereotypical old-school bikie chick, those days are gone. It’s such a culture now.

“Because there is such a majority now of people that are tattooed, I can see how the numbers are decreasing, it’s so common now – it’s really an area they [the Red Cross Blood Service] have to hit because it’s such a majority… they should get a booth at the Sydney Tattoo and Art Expo. There would be 20,000 people at your finger tips that you could inform,” she says.

“I don’t know if you could donate blood on site but you could educate people – hand out pamphlets, and have give-aways and stuff, just say to people ‘just because you’re tattooed, you can still give blood’.”

Ric Sedin, National marketing manager of the Sydney and Body Art Tattoo Expo, has extended an invitation for the Red Cross to exhibit at the 2011 Expo, but the organisation is yet to respond.

Last year, the Expo played host to more than 10,000 tattoo fans who enthusiastically lined up to meet the 158 local and international tattoo artists exhibiting their work.

“We received double that this year: over 20,000 people attended and over 316 artists were involved,” he says.

“There is an intrinsic tribal element to the tattooed community,” says Sedin, “especially for members of Generation Y, a tattoo is no longer a faux pas but a way to express identity.”

“It’s a way for them to stand out, which is funny because everybody is getting them so it’s not really standing out, but there’s definitely been that migration towards a tribal identification,” he says.

And many people in the body art community wonder what would happen if the Red Cross tapped into this ritual aspect of tattooing.

Sedin says that as the demand for body art become more mainstream, there has been increasing recognition of the artistic value of tattoos.

“[TV] Shows like LA Ink have proven that tattoo artists aren’t all seedy bikers but artists, that are into all different mediums of skin”, says Sedin.

“It has shown the continued consultation with the artist, so you’re not just going in and selecting a skull and cross bones anymore. It’s a very personal consultation and skin art has a variety of cultural influences.”

Because the tattooed community is highly ritualistic and tribal in their affiliations, some believe it wouldn’t take much to create a tradition of giving blood before getting inked.

“Imagine that, ‘before you get ink, give blood’,” marvels Gareth Evans, head of Content Solutions at Yahoo! Search Marketing.

Evan’s very first blood donation was inspired by the knowledge he would soon be getting a tattoo – a violin on his right shoulder, and an ankh on his left arm.

“I always feel very smug after I give blood… I think it would be quite easy if it caught on, people with tattoos like their rituals and the process of getting a tattoo is very personal,” he says.

Giving blood can also be a very personal experience. Few are aware of this as much as Sophie Chandler, regular blood donor and program administrator of the OzHelp Foundation, an organisation devoted to suicide prevention and social capacity building.

Chandler began donating blood at 16 years of age after her best friend’s mother got sick.

“I donate because my friend’s mother had donated her entire life and is no longer able to do so. She said ‘I wish someone else could go in my place,’ so my best friend and I started going instead of her and we’ve kept on going with it since we’ve been old enough to donate,”says Chandler.

The mother of Chandler’s friend takes medication that requires regular transfusions of plasma, a liquid that along with red and while blood cells is one of the three major components of blood.

While whole blood donations can only be made once every twelve weeks in Australia, plasma can be donated every two weeks.

However, many blood donors prefer to donate whole blood because the process of donating plasma takes much longer and is considered by some to be unpleasant.

In plasma donations, blood is taken from the donor’s body and ‘cleaned’ using a process called apheresis where the plasma is extracted using a centrifusion machine. The red and white blood cells are then returned to the donor’s body.

Plasma is an essential component in treatments for leukaemia and multiple sclerosis. It is also used in anti-rejection medication for transplant patients.

“I think it’s mostly the time,” says Chandler, “people don’t want to take the time off work, it’s also a very strange sensation watching the blood go out and then watching it spin out in the centrifusion and then be pumped back in.”

There are also fewer places to donate plasma. Mobile blood donor units are not equipped for plasma donations, so the only place to donate plasma is in the Red Cross centres.

Chandler feels the Red Cross is not only making it hard for people to donate in the first place, they’re also making it difficult for people to become regular donors.

“I like thinking of myself as someone who will donate blood repeatedly throughout my life whenever I’m able, and I think that that is a really strong selling point that they really don’t push enough,” she says.

“They say ‘well anyone can donate,’ which is great for recruiting new people, but if they’re having problems retaining the people that they do have, then that’s just as much a problem as not getting new people in.

“It’s unfortunate that they should have to hound people but they kind of do, and for people who are getting tattoos – they’re kind of younger people who are a little bit less dedicated to giving back to the community in that particular way. Why not remind them? They’re healthy, they’re young, they have free time – go and donate blood,” says Chandler.

Despite the urgent call for blood, and the problems the Red Cross faces retaining people who have been deferred, Red Cross National Media Manager Kathy Bowlen says she is not overly concerned.

“We currently have more than 570,000 donors…anyone with a tattoo must only wait six months before they can donate again,” she says.

“We constantly try and raise awareness about who is eligible to donate blood through our Community Relations Officers attending events, the media, our website and brochures,” says Bowlen.