Garraway ‘ashamed by debt over care bills’

KATE Garraway said she is “ashamed” that care bills for husband Derek Draper have left her in debt.

The Good Morning Britain star was spending £16,000 a month on care for her husband before he died in January at 56 after a lengthy battle with the long-term effects of Covid.

The presenter said the cost of basic care exceeded her ITV salary and did not cover his other therapies, the mortgage or other household expenses.

She told the programme: “I am ashamed I’m in debt. I have an incredible job that I love that’s very well paid. I’m not a carer travelling miles, paying their own transport to go and help somebody for the minimum wage.

“I’m somebody that is very well paid and so I just feel a shame that I couldn’t make it work.”

The final year of Draper’s life is documented in a new programme, in which he speaks on camera for the first time, saying: “I want you to hear my story.”

The documentary shows the couple in their daily life, including a scene of him undergoing mobility therapy and wailing and branding himself “pathetic” as he struggles to stand up to grab a walking frame.

Garraway said: “There’s a piece in the documentary where he’s very distressed.

“People might look at it and think, ‘Why is she not in the room with him?’ and Jake, the amazing carer that has been with him on and off throughout the journey, comes in and says, ‘I think he needs you’ and of course I go, but the reason why I’m not in there is that I’m piling through papers to launch yet another appeal.

“And I look back at that and I think ‘Oh, my God, people are going through that without the experience of processing information that we get as training in this job’.” During her appearance, Garraway questioned Education Secretary Gillian Keegan on what the Government was doing to support carers.

She asked her: “When you come out of hospital, you are on your own. And you can fight and fight and fight but the system somehow makes you feel like you’re always losing. Why is that?”

Kate Garraway: Derek’s Story aired last night.