Ted championed his cause to the very end
BY SANDRA BATES
9/05/2008 8:32:00 PM

JUST days after penning an impassioned plea to New South Wales Health Minister Reba Meagher to improve support for research into motor neurone disease and make organ donation an easier process, Blayney Mayor Ted Wilson has succumbed to MND.
Cr Wilson passed away in his sleep at his home in Neville late Thursday night. He was 72.

Cr Wilson was diagnosed with MND late last year, just weeks after being re-elected mayor.

Blayney Shire Council general manager Andrew Roach said Cr Wilson was elected to Blayney Shire Council at a by-election in 1993 and held the position of deputy mayor on several occasions until becoming mayor in September 2005.

Cr Wilson wrote to Health Minister Meagher on April 29. In what was to prove a tragically accurate premonition, the opening paragraph said: "My health has deteriorated quickly, and I fear that by the time you respond to my letter, I may have passed."

He went on to explain to Ms Meagher that he was writing to request "long overdue and very necessary support to Associate Professor Matthew Kiernan and his team of researchers from the Motor Neurone Disease Research Institute of Australia".

"Associate Professor Kiernan has the leading program for MND sufferers in Australia, based at the Prince of Wales Hospital, yet he continues to struggle with the bureaucracy within the hospital system you and your government continue to support, as an impediment to patients in great distress," he wrote.

"I call upon you, as minister for health, to review the services required by Associate Professor Kiernan to provide patients of MND a much better service in the immediate future, and access to resources which will make their treatment more accessible and easier."

Cr Wilson also addressed the issue of organ donation.

"I have been a life long advocate of organ donation and have found it very difficult to arrange," he said.

"At great personal difficulty I have arranged the organ donation through my specialists and have donated my brain and spine to further the research of MND, with little to no help for this service in the Central West.

“As a state, we have made this community service very difficult for many to participate [in], and improve the end goal, of saving more lives.

"I have made the personal commitment to bettering someone else's life.

"I beg you to convince your government to finally right this wrong and provide organ donation services to residents in NSW, in accordance with a national standard. NSW currently has the lowest rate of organ donation in Australia."

Cr Wilson is survived by his wife Betty, sons Rex and Mark and their wives, Lucy and Dorraine and his four grand children.

In his final days, Cr Wilson created a trust fund to raise much-needed funds for MND research.

His funeral will be held on Thursday at The Goods Shed, Neville Siding, 15 Crouch Street Neville from a11am.

In lieu of flowers, the family has requested donations for Cr Wilson's trust fund be forwarded by Blayney Shire Council.