MP Joins Walk to raise funds for Motor Neurone Disease Sufferers

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 15th Jul 2002

Over a hundred friends, relatives and supporters joined a sponsored walk in Bushy Park on Sunday to support victims of Motor Neurone Disease.

MND is a terminal neurological illness which gradually deprives its victims of all control over their bodies. It has been publicised recently by the Diane Prettie (euthanasia) case and by the most famous MND sufferer, Professor Stephen Hawkins. About 1500 people a year are diagnosed with the disease and they live on average for 3 years.

The sponsored walk was supported by Vincent Cable, MP, who jointly chairs the All Party Motor Neurone Disease Group in parliament, and by local resident Nikki Wadge whose late husband Andy publicised the impact of the disease on families. Vincent Cable said: "I have seen at first hand the impact of cancer but MND is in a league of its own in the list of horrible diseases. Its sufferers are fully in control of their mental faculties until the end but gradually become physically helpless and lose their speech. I see my job as an MP as getting a better deal for families who have to struggle with all the gruesome bureaucracy that surrounds people with disabilities and carers benefits and the slowness of council social services, which simply do not take into account the needs of people with degenerative diseases like this".