Former US president Jimmy Carter enters hospice care

Washington: Jimmy Carter, America’s oldest living president, has begun hospice care and will spend his remaining days at home after a series of hospital stays.

In a statement released on Saturday (US time), the Carter Centre said the 98-year-old “today decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention”.

Former US president Jimmy Carter.Credit: AP

“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.”

Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, was America’s 39th president, narrowly beating Gerald Ford to serve in the White House from 1977 to 1981. After a difficult term underpinned by low approval ratings, economic challenges and foreign policy woes such as the Iran hostage crisis, he was beaten by Republican Ronald Reagan in a landslide at the next election.

Carter has faced a series of health scares in recent years, including beating cancer in 2015. Four years later, he underwent surgery to remove pressure on his brain before suffering a minor pelvic fracture and injuring his forehead in a series of falls.

However, despite keeping a low profile, particularly during the global pandemic, he has continued to speak out about the threat to democracy, which has long been a passion.

In a New York Times article ahead of the January 6 anniversary last year, Carter warned that the US “teeters on the brink of a widening abyss” and that “without immediate action, we are at genuine risk of civil conflict and losing our precious democracy”.

Earlier, he had joined three other living former presidents – Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama – in condemning the Donald Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol building in a bid to prevent Joe Biden’s election victory from being certified.

Carter graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1946 but resigned after his father died in 1953 to run his family’s peanut warehouse business in Plains, Georgia, where he still lives with his wife, Rosalynn Carter. The pair have shared a lifelong romance, and to this day, when asked to recount the best decision he’s ever made, Carter often replies: “Asking Rosalynn to marry me.”

President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn lead their guests in dancing at the annual Congressional Christmas Ball at the White House in 1978.Credit: AP

Jason Carter, one of the former president’s grandchildren and the chairman of the Carter Centre’s board of trustees, said he saw both of his grandparents yesterday.

“They are at peace and – as always – their home is full of love. Thank you all for your kind words,” he tweeted.

Prior to being president, Carter was a state senator and governor in Georgia, and until his health problems worsened recently, had spent decades teaching Sunday school at the Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown.

A high-point of his presidential term was the Egypt-Israel peace agreement signed in 1979, which formally ended the state of war that had existed between the two countries.

He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts in advocating for human rights, world peace, and social development.

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