Former US president Jimmy Carter discontinued medical treatment and entered hospice care. The 98-year-old would be transferred to a hospice after “a succession of brief hospital stays,” according to a statement released by the Carter Center.
“Former US President Jimmy Carter chose to spend his final days at home with his family today and accept hospice care rather than additional medical treatment,” the statement said.
“He has the full support of his family and medical personnel,” it said. The Carter family wants privacy at this time and appreciates the concerns of his many followers.
President Carter reigned over the country for four years, from 1977 to 1981. He launched the Carter Center in 1982, helping many humanitarian endeavors.
President Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his work in co-founding the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which supports worldwide disease prevention and eradication initiatives, election monitoring, and peace talks.
In 1994, he went to North Korea on the peace mission of then-President Bill Clinton. In 2007, he proclaimed his membership in The Elders, a group of independent international leaders, including Nelson Mandela and Kofi Annan, who collaborate on peace and human rights issues.
When President George H.W. Bush died in 2019 at 94, he became the president who had lived the longest.
President Carter was diagnosed with metastatic cancer in 2015, although he did not specify where cancer began.
Later that year, he reported that melanoma had been diagnosed in his brain and liver and that he had begun treatment with radiation therapy and an immunotherapy drug. In December 2015, he stated that his cancer testing had returned hostile.
The lawmaker fell several times in 2019 and later needed surgery in the hospital to relieve pressure on his brain caused by the fall’s hemorrhage.
Throughout the forty years since leaving office, he has written 30 novels, the most recently published only five years ago.
Before the COVID-19 outbreak, Jimmy continued to teach Sunday school in Plains, Georgia. He would spend a week each year with his wife Rosalynn, whom he married in 1946, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity.
Jimmy and Rosalynn have three sons, Jack, James III, and Donnel, and one daughter, Amy. They also have 13 great-grandchildren and 12 grandchildren.
