EDITORIAL: After 25-year wait I can finally give blood again

Northland Age editor Mike Dinsdale gave blood again this week, 25 years after his last donation in New Zealand, with a rule change now allowing those who had lived in the UK previously to give donate.

I did something this week that I haven’t done for more than 25 years - give blood.

Giving blood is something I’ve done since I was old enough and regularly did in the United Kingdom before coming here in 1988.

And I continued my donations until 1999, when a rule change stopped me, and thousands of others, from giving the life-saving liquid.

Since 2000, New Zealand has excluded potential donors who lived in the UK, Ireland or France for six months or more between 1980 and 1996, due to the potential for these people to be infected with Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) - also known as Mad Cow Disease - which was rampant in UK cattle at that time.

In August 2023 the Blood Service made a submission to medical regulator Medsafe, recommending the restriction be removed. Medsafe approved it and us ‘‘vCJD refugees’’ can finally donate again.

I can, and do, give blood whenever I go back to the UK.

When I first gave blood, they would give you a can of stout afterwards to help replace the blood you had just donated, which seemed like a very fair exchange at the time. And I’m delighted that I can give blood here again.

I’ve always seen it as a bit of a community service to give blood.

It’s a vital lifesaver and you just never know when you, or somebody you love, may need blood. We use about 1000 units of blood in our Northland hospitals every week, so it’s a vital part of our health system.

I managed to catch the Blood Service when it was in Whangārei on Monday and happily settled into the chair to give blood here again.

And 30 minutes later I was out of there and some of my blood will hopefully help somebody else.

And it’s important that I, and anybody else who does can, gives blood as NZ has one of the lowest rates of blood donors. It’s especially important if you have a rare blood type.

Fewer than 4 per cent of the eligible population donate blood in NZ. To put our donation rate into perspective, Saudi Arabia tops the list with 58 per cent of eligible people doing so, followed by India (52 per cent). Further down the list are the US (23 per cent), Australia (20 per cent), UK (18 per cent) and Japan (11 per cent).

The Blood Service said the approval was “bloody good news” and I’m also hoping it will increase those donor rates dramatically.

But it is indeed bloody good news and anybody who is keen to give blood again, or to donate for the first time - go to nzblood.co.nz.

I’m sure the Blood Service, and the people whose lives might be saved by that blood, will be grateful.

The site will also tell you when the service is coming to the Far North later this year.

However, the ban on gay men giving blood is still in place but may be removed this year too.