
Kate Garraway remembered a tough trip to take husband Derek Draper home from the hospital amid long ambulance wait times.
The Good Morning Britain host, 55, has been caring for her husband Derek for almost two years while he battles different health concerns caused by Covid-19 infection.
Derek, a former political lobbyist, was infected with the virus in March 2020 and placed in a coma to assist his body recover from the symptoms. He was released from the hospital the next year, but his body had been severely damaged, including his heart and lungs.
Kate has now recounted a terrible moment trying to transport Derek home from the hospital, since patients must wait several hours for an ambulance.
Kate described driving Derek home in a black cab after being informed it might take up to five hours for an official medic car to arrive on Friday’s Good Morning Britain, following a discussion on ambulance wait times.
‘I’ve hired a lot of cabs for Derek for hospital visits because mobility service, ambulances are very delayed,’ she said.

‘If you try to book an official car you can sometimes be waiting five hours to bring you home from hospital.’
‘He was in a lot of pain,’ she recalled. ‘It wasn’t sustainable. So we took a cab home from the hospital.
‘We went over a speed bump and he slipped out of the wheelchair. I was really lucky because the black cab driver who had the mobility access, he had cared for his father post a stroke, so he was really good at handling someone with that condition.
‘So the two of us were hailing him back into the wheelchair, strapping him in and getting him home.
‘But there are many taxi drivers who would have gone “I can’t deal with this.” I’m not even sure I was meant to be dealing with it.’


When asked by co-host Ben Shephard if she believes she should have waited for the ambulance to bring Derek home, Kate admits she still doesn’t know, as ‘he was in such distress and pain.’
‘You’re having to all the time… make calls, which really you know you’re not qualified for.’
During a recent episode of GMB, Kate explained that, over three years after Derek was first diagnosed with the disease, he was finally offered a meeting with an expert who was researching the effects of long-term Covid damage.
‘Finally got into the long Covid clinic after a year-and-a-half to an amazing group of people that are working on the impact of Covid damage, and they said, “We’re going to get you into this person, that person, we’re going to take action”.
‘The appointments have now come through for 2023 and 2024, so you’re talking about four years from the impact.’