Celebrations of scones, tea and dress ups have been happening in Red Cross donor centres this week due to the ‘Mad Cow rule’ being lifted.

Since December 2000, people who spent six or more months in the United Kingdom between 1980 and 1996 have been prevented from donating blood due to the UK outbreak of mad cow disease.

Given our LGA’s demographic, this has meant a large number of local people haven’t been able to give blood for over twenty years and the Red Cross is keen to get them back.

Media manager of Red Cross, Jemma Falkenmire, says around 140,000 Australians have been impacted by the Mad Cow rule.

“Our estimation is that we will see around 18,000 of those people become blood donors in the first 12 months and that would potentially contribute up to 58,000 additional donations to the nation's blood supply every year."

The lift comes just in time as Red Cross struggles with winter blood donations.

“We are seeing around 30,000 donors every week either cancelling their appointments, rescheduling, or not being able to show up due to COVID, colds and flu,” says Ms Falkenmire.

“Although we are certainly seeing a tidal wave of new donors at Lifeblood this week.”

Despite the excitement, the Red Cross is encouraging people to not all come in during the first week.

“What we really need to see is people making donations over the next couple of months because we can't stock pile blood as it has a short shelf life. So it is really important that we see those new donors consistently coming in,” says Ms Falkenmire.

“But people are very excited and we are certainly celebrating this in our donor centres. We encourage anybody who would like to come in to get in touch on 13 14 95.”

The Red Cross mobile service will be back in Kiama in September or in Shellharbour on August 1.

The Wollongong donor centre is also open long hours seven days a week for appointments.