Inked up Aussies are being called on to help fill 15,000 plasma donation appointments each week, with tattoo deferrals now scrapped by Australian Red Cross Lifeblood.
Until now, blood donors had to wait four months after being tattooed before they could give blood.
"The deferral still stands for whole blood, but if you've just got a tattoo you can come straight on in and donate plasma," Janine Dietrich from the Tamworth, NSW Lifeblood Centre said.
A study of 25,000 tattooed donors conducted by Lifeblood and the University of NSW's Kirby Institute found that those inked in Australian-licensed tattoo parlours were safe to donate blood plasma.
"People with tattoos are perfect plasma donors because we know they're not afraid of needles — one of the biggest barriers for new donors donating blood or plasma for the first time," Lifeblood Donor Services executive director Cath Stone said.
"Around 15 per cent of Australians think having a tattoo means you can't donate blood at all, so we're hopeful this change will help us collect the more than 15,000 plasma donations needed by Aussie patients each week."
Donors wanted: 'new, returning and inked'
Lifeblood predicts the changes will see 17,000 extra donors now able to roll up their sleeves and donate plasma, boosting stocks by 50,000 donations a year.
In the regional NSW city of Tamworth, dozens of locals were waiting out the four-month window.
"We've got around 100 Tamworth locals who have been prevented from donating blood or plasma due to having tattoos … one in seven Australians have been tattooed," Ms Dietrich said.
"We definitely always need both whole blood and plasma, but … plasma … is in high demand considering we make 18 different products from plasma.
"You can donate plasma more often, you can come in every two weeks if you have time and are healthy and well, so we'd love to see more people come in centre: new, return, inked."
Ms Dietrich said the plasma donations helped people with autoimmune diseases, cancer, haemophilia, kidney diseases and burns.
"It makes a lot of different products for a lot of sick people," she said.
"An hour of your day, come on in and have a sausage roll and a milk afterwards."
