Kate Garraway has praised the "miraculous" nurses who saved her husband Derek Draper's life after he was hospitalised with coronavirus.
Derek, 53, was in hospital for over a year after a battle with covid-19 left him with multiple serious health issues.
The former political adviser returned home to GMB host Kate and their children Darcey and Billy recently, but remains in need of round-the-clock care.
Marking International Nurses Day, Kate told Heart Breakfast: "We all go 'that doctor who saved my life', 'thank you to that incredible surgeon', but as I've seen over the last 14 months, it's actually the care of nurses that - especially when you're dealing with something like Covid where there is no cure, and not enough is yet known about how to treat the symptoms although I'm sure the medical profession will get there - it's their incredible care that has saved Derek's life. It's that simple."
She added: "I did a little bit of work with the Royal College of Nursing a few years back, and before then I was very ignorant, and I saw nurses very much in the role of the nurse from Fireman Sam, you know, so they came along and put plasters on.
"Or you see the nurses in A&E, but you don't realise that nursing covers such a wide spectrum; mental health nursing, in care homes, it can be as simple as holding someone's hand, it can be as big as making sure you get the right kit there when someone needs their life saving.
"And with Derek for a lot of his time, he was in a prolonged disorder of consciousness, so effectively a coma, and every day the nurses would go in, of course we couldn't, his family couldn't, and they would go in and I just thought it was miraculous because they would say, 'good morning Derek, how are you this morning?'.
"And if you think about having to exude love out of yourself to someone who is unconscious, not responsive, not able to say thank you, not able to acknowledge it, they did it continuously, relentlessly, and that must have been what was a big part of trying to haul Derek from this frightening place he was in.
"It was a turning point for me watching them talk to Derek, because finding joy right now for everybody, which is why today's so important, is so hard, and I was struggling to hang on to hope, whilst also thinking 'am I just being unrealistic?'.
"But when I watched them pouring love and skill into Derek, every single day, and even though they had no idea whether it was going to work, they had no idea whether they could win the war against Covid and they also are putting their own lives at risk by exposing themselves to Covid, I just thought that's just the definition of hope, it makes me want to cry now."
