ONE satisfied patient has said thank you for the care he received at Morriston Hospital by donating his 80th birthday presents to the staff.

Rather than keep the gifts for himself, Thomas Vaughan Evans asked his family and friends for donations he could pass on to staff at the Welsh Centre for Burns and Plastic Surgery, who looked after him when he needed an operation.

When he found a lump on his leg earlier this year, little did he know that just a few weeks later medics would need to act quickly to cut out the cancer.

"It was totally out of the blue," said Thomas, who lives in Garden Village.

"The tests showed the lump was cancerous and I needed to have it taken out. I'm on the mend now though."

Alma, his wife of over 50 years, was just pleased they could do something to say thank you.

She said: "Everyone at the hospital has been so professional and caring — we just wanted to give something back.

"I wanted to make a fuss of him so I organised a surprise birthday party at Garden Village football club and invited 70 of our family and friends.

"We don't really need gifts at our age so we asked the guests to give a donation that we could pass onto the hospital.

"I did treat Thomas to a helicopter flight around the Gower though.

"We had a really good evening at the party and raised £750.

"Then a friend in Australia sent us another £50 to make it up to £800."

And they visited Morriston again this week to hand the money over to staff.

Consultant plastic surgeon, Mr Hamish Laing, said: "We only did what we had to do for this rare cancer, but we're really grateful for the donation.

"We plan to use it for additional training and development for the Sarcoma team so that we can continue to keep up to date with the latest techniques and skills."

Sarcomas are cancers of connective tissue — such as bone, muscle, nerves, fatty tissue, cartilage — and are quite rare, accounting for just one per cent of all cancer diagnoses. There are around 2,400 cases in the UK each year.

ABM University NHS Trust hosts the sarcoma service for South West Wales.