A widow who lost her husband of 52 years to liver cancer has thanked her community for its support.
In October last year, Caerphilly Observer reported how RAF veteran Roy Bushen and wife Sandra were faced with the prospect of spending their £18,000 savings to pay for treatment to prolong Roy’s life.
After their story was featured, the community rallied around and started fundraising towards the cost, which the NHS in Wales refused to meet.
Tragically, Roy, 75, of Trecenydd, passed away in December, but the £3,789 raised by wellwishers has now been donated to good causes.
Velindre Hospital, where Roy was a patient, and the palliative care unit at Ystrad Mynach’s Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr each received £1,000, while charities Tenovus and Macmillan have each benefited £895.
Sandra said she was touched by people’s generosity with donations coming as far afield as Australia and New Zealand.
She said: “It was absolutely wonderful. We didn’t know half the people who donated.
“When the story went out, and everything goes on Facebook these days, it was absolutely tremendous. The people who organised the fundraising were tremendous.
“To have that much raised in such a short space of time was overwhelming.”
Keen model maker Roy was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2012 and it was during treatment that doctors discovered the terminal liver cancer.
A treatment known as Selective Internal Radiotherapy Treatment (SIRT) could have prolonged his life, but this is unavailable in Wales.
Just after his diagnosis last year, Roy told us: “I feel totally let down. I feel they’ve got all that they can out of me and they’ve pushed me to the sidelines. I feel bitterness as there is so much money wasted in the NHS.”
Mr Bushen served in the RAF on Christmas Island in the 1950s while nuclear tests were being carried out.
He had said friends and colleagues from that time have since died from cancer.
• The last model that Roy was working on was of Eglwysilan Church in Abertridwr.
The highly-detailed model will shortly go on display at the Aber Valley Heritage Centre in Senghenydd.