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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Entertainment
Dominique Hines

Kate Garraway ‘continues to push forward’ amid husband Derek Draper’s health struggle

Kate Garraway provided a brief update on her husband Derek Draper's condition while attending the National Television Awards on Tuesday night.

The 56-year-old Good Morning Britain presenter spoke to reporters on the red carpet about how Draper and their family were faring.

'We keep ploughing on," she said. "He's hanging in there. Unfortunately, there hasn't been any significant improvement, but we continue to push forward.'

Draper, also 56, was diagnosed with COVID-19 in March 2020, at the onset of the pandemic, and his condition became life-threatening.

He was placed in a medically induced coma and required a ventilator, spending a grueling 13 months in the hospital. Since then, he has been battling serious health issues and has had intermittent hospitalisations, relying on a wheelchair for mobility.

Garraway at Tuesday night’s National Television Awards at LOndon’s The O2 Arena (Dave Benett)

"Derek and the kids are watching the awards ceremony from home," she added. "We've also recorded it to watch together later. I'm just relieved I didn't stumble on the red carpet."

Garraway recently revealed her husband was trapped in one of Heathrow Airport’s new disabled passport scanners for “an hour”.

While travelling back from the United States of America, where Draper had been for treatment, he used Heathrow’s disabled passport scanners.

The new installation was created specifically to allow wheelchair users to go through the self-scanners, an “achievement” that the airport was celebrating, as previously they would not have been wide enough to allow them in.

Garraway with husband Derek Draper who needs round the clock care (ITV)

Discussing the incident on last week's Good Morning Britain, she explained: “Heathrow was celebrating, they put in a new wheelchair-width… passport scanner.

“Before then you couldn’t get a wheelchair through... but when it came to do it with Derek he hasn’t got the cognition you’ve got or the strength you’ve got in your upper body – we realised we couldn’t get him into the country.

“He went forward, the door locked, but the disabled person has to free it and you’re not allowed, because of the border, to do it yourself. So he was stuck in no man’s land, literally between two borders, for an hour or so.

“So even when conscious effort has been made to make things work, and I wonder if it’s because there aren’t enough disabled people talking about it.”

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