Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Care costs have left me with up to £800k of debt
GOOD Morning Britain star Kate Garraway has revealed the £16,000-a-month cost of husband Derek’s round-the-clock care has caused her to run up huge debts.
In the documentary, she says: “Derek’s care costs more than my salary from ITV and that is before you pay for a mortgage, before you pay any household bills, before you pay for anything for the kids – so we are at a crunch point.
“I am in debt. I can’t earn enough money to cover my debt because I am managing Derek’s care and I can’t even use the money I do have to support Derek’s recovery because it’s going on the basics.”
Documentary director Lucy Wilcox then says to Kate people will be surprised to hear that as they will assume she is “loaded” because shes on TV.
Kate responds: “Listen, I’m not going to pretend that I am poorly paid. I have an incredible job that I love which is well paid, but it’s not enough.”
Kate estimates her debts to be between £500,000 and £800,000.
She adds: “If it is like this for me, what is it like for everybody else?
“Time and time again the system tells us that Derek isn’t sick enough, doesn’t have enough of a health need to qualify for funded care. I’ve appealed but that still hasn’t been processed two-and-a-half, three years later. Something has to be done or the whole service, the people working in it, everything is going to break.
“Derek’s care, the basic needs, not including any therapy, which I am happy to pay on top, is nearly £4,000 a week. How can I afford that? How can anybody afford £16,000 a month? Please, God, there could be another 40 years of this.”
She continues: “We are entirely reliant on extraordinary carers but the system in which they work is unbelievably complicated, and underfunded, and trying to meet an impossible need.
“Why is it that people who get sick and it’s no longer considered the right thing for them to be in hospital… why does coming home feel like falling off a cliff?”
Derek’s care costs more than my ITV salary, so we are at crunch point..