Former President Jimmy Carter has decided to receive home hospice care, deciding to spend his remaining time with his family “instead of additional medical intervention,” the Carter Center announced on Saturday.
“He has the full support of his family and his medical team,” the Carter Center said. “The Carter family asks for privacy during this time and is grateful for the concern shown by his many admirers.”
The center said that Carter made the decision to enter hospice after series of short hospital stays.
Carter, 98, has lived longer than any other U.S. president. In office from 1977 to 1981, he also has had the longest post-presidency, a period in which he received the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2002, “for undertaking peace negotiations, campaigning for human rights, and working for social welfare.” He has spent his post-presidency on humanitarian causes and as an observer of the international integrity of elections.
Carter and his wife Rosalynn live in their hometown of Plains, GA.
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden visited the Carters at their home in 2021. Biden was an early congressional supporter of Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign, when he won the Democratic nomination against a field of much better known contenders.
Carter’s last visit to Washington, D.C. was in 2018, when he attended the state funeral of former President George H.W. Bush. That visit also was a rare gathering of five current and former presidents.
Carter announced in 2015 that he was being treated for cancer After treatment, though, doctors said that the cancer had disappeared.