Kate Garraway says she's 'ashamed' by debt after paying £16,000-a-month on care for Derek Draper

26 March 2024, 12:59

By Alice Dear

Kate Garraway has revealed the cost of care for her late husband Derek Draper but her in debt, despite having a high-earning job.

Kate Garraway has said she feels "ashamed" that she's in debt after paying £16,000-a-month on care for her late husband Derek Draper who died on 7th January.

The Good Morning Britain presenter will talk about the debt she has accrued over the past four years in a new documentary Kate Garraway: Derek's Story which will explore her husband's health battle in the last year of his life.

During the documentary, the TV star reveals that Derek's care cost around £16,000-a-month and that, while she is paid well by ITV, her salary did not cover this care on top of mortgage and household bills, describing it at the time as "crunch point".

"I am in debt," Kate says in the documentary: "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 all the time."

She goes on to explain in the documentary: "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.

"Time and time again the system tell 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. If this is what it's like for me, what on earth is it like for everybody else?"

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Kate is mindful of the struggles other families are going through as she struggles to come to terms with the cost, saying that if something isn't done, the whole care service will break.

In the clip from 2023, Kate tells the cameras: "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?"

She goes on: "We are entirely reliant on extraordinary carers, but the system in which they work in 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?"

Kate Garraway reveals debts after £16,000-a-month care for Derek

Ahead of the documentary airing on ITV on Tuesday evening, Kate joined her colleagues on Good Morning Britain where she revealed she felt "ashamed" by her debt.

Kate told Richard Madeley and Susanna Reid: "I am ashamed of the fact that I am in debt...because I have an incredible job that I love, that's very well paid."

She went on: "I'm not a carer, travelling miles, paying their own transport to go and help somebody for minimum wage. I'm somebody who is very well paid and so I just feel ashamed that I couldn't make it work."

Derek Draper first contracted Covid-19 in March 2020 at the peak of the pandemic. His case was so serious he was put into a coma in April of the same year, spending 13 months in hospital before being discharged.

In December 2023, Derek suffered a cardiac arrest and died just weeks later on 7th January 2024.

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