Jimmy Carter Enters Hospice Care at 98
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Former president Jimmy Carter, the longest-lived American president at 98 years old, entered hospice care Saturday in Plains, Georgia.
The Carter Center said that he preferred to rest comfortably at home and undergo symptom management rather than pursue further treatment for his condition, which at this time remains unknown.
“After a series of short hospital stays, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter today decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention,” the organization said in a statement. “He has the full support of his family and medical team. The Carter family asks for privacy during this time and is grateful for the concern shown by his many admirers.”
In 2015, Carter recovered from metastatic melanoma, that spread to his brain and other parts of his body, after receiving an experimental drug that eliminated the cancer. Throughout 2019, the former president suffered a series of falls that caused injury to various limbs, some of which were operated on.
The former president received an outpouring of support on Saturday, including from the Secret Service, which has guarded him for many decades.
“Rest easy Mr. President. We will be forever by your side,” Anthony Gugliemi, the agency’s spokesman, said online.
Carter served as the 39th president from 1977 to 1981. His legacy includes major diplomatic projects, such as the Camp David Accords, negotiations aimed at repairing fractured relations between Egypt and Israel and which resulted in a political agreement. Carter, who started as a peanut farmer in Georgia, in 2002 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his dedication to brokering peace deals abroad.
Throughout his political career, Carter identified as an evangelical Christian whose faith informed his conduct in office. In retirement, Carter taught Sunday school classes at Maranatha Baptist Church in his Georgia town.
During the 1970s, however, Carter presided over an economy plagued by stagflation, a combination of high inflation and high unemployment. The era was remembered for gas shortages that led to lines of cars waiting to fuel up that stretched for blocks. Carter was eventually defeated in a 1980 landslide election by Republican candidate Ronald Reagan, who promised a return to prosperity and limited government.
