Coronavirus: Kate Garraway thanks NHS staff keeping husband ‘still with us’ after weeks in hospital

Kate Garraway has thanked the NHS staff who are working to aid her husband’s recovery from coronavirus after spending her first birthday without him in 16 years.

The TV presenter’s husband Derek Draper, a former lobbyist and political adviser, has been in hospital for more than a month with COVID-19, including treatment in intensive care.

Doctors and nurses are keeping him “still with us” and “battling every day to inch him towards recovery”, Garraway said in a message shared on social media.

After turning 53 on Monday, the Good Morning Britain (GMB) host posted a picture of her husband taken while he was editor of a student newspaper on Instagram.

“So yesterday was always going to be a tough one, first birthday in 16 years without Derek, so for the kids and I, his absence was very present,” she said.

“But we resolved to do what I think we are all having to do at the moment aren’t we, treasure and be grateful for the love around us, however distanced we are from it.”

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Garraway, who appeared as a contestant on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! last year, included a picture of a birthday cake she received from “strangers” and also thanked her “amazing” family and her husband’s friends, “who sent me messages of fun times they have had with him”.

Draper, 52, was taken to hospital at the end of March.

Garraway revealed in April that her husband had been taken into intensive care and was in a critical condition with coronavirus.

She has been providing regular updates on her husband’s condition to coincide with the Clap for Carers on Thursday evenings, and last week revealed that he is “still with us, but what a battle it is”.

The couple married in 2005 and have a daughter and a son.

On Sunday, Garraway’s GMB co-host Piers Morgan said he was being tested for coronavirus after suffering a “mild symptom”.

However, on Monday he revealed he had tested negative and would be returning to work on the show as soon as he is advised he can do by his doctor.

Three weeks ago, fellow co-host Susanna Reid self-isolated at her home in London when a member of her household developed symptoms of the virus.

Journalists are classed as key workers and, like all broadcasters, including Sky News, Morgan has been respecting social distancing rules while on air.

(c) Sky News 2020: Coronavirus: Kate Garraway thanks NHS staff keeping husband ‘still with us’ after weeks in hospital