Kate Garraway: Finding Derek airs on Tuesday 23rd March at 9 pm. Here is everything you need to know before you watch the hour-long ITV documentary.
Kate’s husband Derek Draper was hospitalised in March 2020 with COVID-19. In the past year, he has continued to receive treatment for the various problems that have been caused by the virus. Derek's wife, Good Morning Britain presenter Kate Garraway, began making a documentary in 2020 to follow Derek's journey.
This documentary will be a one-off special that will focus on life for Kate Garraway and her family since Derek's diagnosis a year ago. The filming began in July 2020 and will bring the audience up to date with Derek's current condition. ITV states, "Kate offers an unflinching account of the profound effects on her family and on others as she opens up on camera for the first time on the reality of the past 12 months."
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Follow Kate’s incredibly personal journey as she supports husband, Derek, battling with long-Covid. Kate Garraway: Finding Derek, Tuesday 23rd March at 9pm on ITV & @ITVHub #FindingDerek @GMB pic.twitter.com/Q6266Uf6oLMarch 18, 2021
Derek and Kate have been married for 16 years and have two children together called Darcey, who is aged 15, and William, who is 11 years old. Derek worked as a lobbyist and a political advisor and more recently as a psychotherapist.
Derek was diagnosed with COVID-19 a year ago in March 2020. The virus has led to damage to his liver and pancreas, failure of both his kidney and heart. He also has holes in his lungs after he suffered from various different infections bacterial pneumonia.
In the documentary, Kate Garraway: Finding Derek, Kate revealed the severity of Derek's condition. "Derek is the sickest person the team of Doctors in the lung hospital have treated, who has lived. His kidneys have failed, his liver's failed. His heart is being supported by medicine," she said.
In the promotion for this new series, Kate has revealed that she is keeping all of Derek’s newspapers so that he can read them when he returns home. "I wanted to keep all of his financial times which he gets every day delivered. So they're all here ready for you Derek when you come back....maybe it's like a little capsule of time really. If he can wake up and he can begin to piece things together, maybe it will help him process the time that's passed,” she said. She said this in July 2020 when Derek had only been in hospital for a few months.
Kate recently told the Sunday Times that Derek could be ‘locked in’ forever and there is still a lot of uncertainty about his future. “The very worst moment was when they said he could be locked in forever. And I just thought this is a horror story. I don’t know if he’ll ever have any kind of life again. We just don’t know,” she said.
Also on Good Morning Britain, Kate revealed that Derek is ‘still fighting’ for his life. She opened up about the upcoming documentary and stated that she hoped viewers wouldn’t be scared by what they see in the show. “Obviously Derek is an extreme example, we don't want to scare people with what he's been through but there are many other people that have got versions of it and still not enough is known about the impact of it,” she said.
Kate Garraway: Finding Derek will be on at 9 pm on ITV on Tuesday 23rd March 2021.
