KATE Winslet said the story of a woman from Scotland facing a £17,000 energy bill simply to keep her daughter alive “absolutely destroyed” her.
The Oscar-winning actress made a £17,000 donation to the GoFundMe page of Carolynne Hunter from Tillicoultry, near Stirling.
Hunter’s 12-year-old daughter Freya, the youngest of four children, has severe complex health problems and disabilities, is non-verbal and blind and requires full-time oxygen and at-home nursing care.
She launched a fundraiser to help her pay the soaring running costs of the equipment which help keeps Freya alive, including a machine that monitors her oxygen and heart rate.
Titanic star Winslet, 47, told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg she felt she had to do something when she heard Hunter was “going to have to put her child into care because she could not afford her electricity bills” and it “absolutely destroyed” her.
“I thought, on what planet is anyone going to let that happen? This is completely, completely wrong”, she told the broadcaster.
“It was just wrong to me that this woman was going to suffer and that she should have been in any way as a mother forced to make such a heart-breaking decision because she simply didn’t have the support and couldn’t pay the bills.
Kate Winslet on donating money to a mother who was going to have to put her child into care because she couldn't afford the bills. "On what planet is anyone going to let that happen... it was just wrong... that she was forced to make such a heartbreaking decision.."#bbclaurak pic.twitter.com/ctov0j91pl
— Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) December 4, 2022
“I just couldn’t’ let that happen.”
On her GoFundMe page, Hunter said she had “no way of reducing” the energy in her home due to Freya’s needs, and that she faced a predicted annual fuel bill of £17,000 in January 2023 – up from just over £9,000 in October this year.
In August, she spoke out about her fears for the winter.
“Our families are going to suffer, there’s going to be a mass crisis for the NHS and social care and children will die if their families are not able to pay for it.”
