Former President Jimmy Carter is receiving hospice care at his home, the Carter Center announced Saturday. He made the decision after a series of short hospital stays, the center said in a statement.
The charity created by the 98-year-old former president said that Carter “decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention.”
It said he has the full support of his medical team and family, which “asks for privacy at this time and is grateful for the concern shown by his many admirers.”
In August 2015, Carter had a small cancerous mass removed from his liver. The following year, Carter announced that he needed no further treatment, as an experimental drug had eliminated any sign of cancer.
Following Saturday’s announcement, Sen. Raphael Warnock, who represents Carter’s home state of Georgia, called the former president “a man of great faith” who “has walked with God.”
“In this tender time of transitioning, God is surely walking with him,” Warnock, who is also a minister, said on Twitter. “May he, Rosalynn & the entire Carter family be comforted with that peace and surrounded by our love & prayers.”
Jason Carter, the couple’s grandson who now chairs The Carter Center governing board, said Saturday in a tweet that he “saw both of my grandparents yesterday. They are at peace and—as always—their home is full of love.”
Senate Leader Chuck Schumer said on Twitter Saturday evening that he was “praying for President Carter and his family.”
Carter celebrated his most recent birthday in October with family and friends in Plains, the tiny Georgia town where he and his wife, Rosalynn, were born in the years between World War I and the Great Depression.
The Carter Center, which the 39th president and the former first lady established after their one White House term, last year marked 40 years of promoting democracy and conflict resolution, monitoring elections, and advancing public health in the developing world.
Carter, a Democrat, became the 39th U.S. president when he defeated President Gerald R. Ford in 1976. He served a single term and was defeated by Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Carter won the 1976 election after beginning the campaign as a little-known, one-term Georgia governor. His surprise performance in the Iowa caucuses established the small, Midwestern state as an epicenter of presidential politics. Carter went on to defeat Ford in the general election, largely on the strength of sweeping the South before his native region shifted heavily to Republicans.
