Health boss Greg Hunt reveals how his tumultuous childhood made him the man he is today

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Health boss Greg Hunt reveals how his tumultuous childhood made him the man he is today 

Federal health minister Greg Hunt has shared a deeply personal insight into his turbulent early years and growing up with a mother suffering from mental illness. 

He has previously opened up about his late mother Kathinka’s long battle with bipolar disorder and time spent in and out of mental institutions.

But the man leading the government’s fight against coronavirus hasn’t spoken about the traumatic childhood memories of his mother- until now.

One of his earliest vivid memories is of her chasing him around the kitchen table with a carving knife.

Federal Greg Hunt (pictured as a boy with his mum) has opened up about his mother Kathinka’s battle with bipolar disorder

‘She was laughing at the time. It was sort of funny with a bit of an edge, (and I was thinking) I better keep moving. I’m not going to test out being caught,’ Mr Hunt recalled the Sunday Mail.

He doesn’t believe he ever told his father, former Victorian minister Alan Hunt about what happened.

Despite his mother’s inner demons, Mr Hunt insists he had a good upbringing with opportunities and that she entertained his friends and ‘taught me empathy and the need for caring.’

He adored his mother and kept her happy by making cups of tea, or coaxing her outside to play cricket with him.

Now a father of two, Greg Hunt, (pictured with wife Paula) says his mother shaped him to be the man he is today, despite her troubled life

But as he got older, Mr Hunt realised his mother wasn’t like others.

He recalled how she would often lock herself in her room for days and drank a ‘liberal use of alcohol’ to numb her chronic pain.

He recalled how his mother once came to school to pick him up and drove through the Year 12 building.

Mr Hunt described one visit to the mental institution to see her as ‘something straight out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.’

The institution was where he last saw his mother alive.

The health minister (pictured in March) has spoken for the first time of being chased around the kitchen table by his mother armed with a carving knife  

‘That was really confronting for me because she was on lithium, which I never want to see anyone on I know or anybody else on lithium because it’s not like the drugs they have now,’ Mr Hunt said.

His mother later died from a heart attack aged 58 when a 27-year-old Mr Hunt was in the US studying international relations and human rights on a scholarship at Yale.

Despite her troubled life, Kathinka shaped her son to be the government leader and health advocate he is today.

‘We are all a product of our childhood. Mum taught me empathy and the need for caring,’ Mr Hunt said. 

Greg Hunt (pictured with his wife Paula) last last in mum in a mental institution before she later died of a heart attack at home while he was studying abroad

 

 

Source: Daily Mail australia

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