Jimmy Carter to receive hospice care at home

Former President Jimmy Carter has decided to receive hospice care “instead of additional medical intervention” at his home in Plains, Georgia, the Carter Center announced Saturday.

The 98-year-old made the decision after a “series of short hospital stays,” the center said. “He has the full support of his family and his medical team.”

Grandson Jason Carter said the family patriarch and Rosalynn, his wife of 76 years, are “at peace.”

“I saw both of my grandparents yesterday,” Jason Carter tweeted. “They are at peace and — as always —their home is full of love.”

The former president, whose tumultuous single term ended in 1981, has faced serious health problems in recent years.

In August 2015, Carter underwent surgery to remove a mass from his liver. Later that month, he held a news conference to disclose that doctors had found melanoma, “four very small spots,” on his brain.

“I’m perfectly at ease with whatever comes,” he said, adding that he had led “a wonderful life.”

After several months of treatment, Carter’s doctors said that he was officially cancer-free. But in 2019, he was hospitalized again, after suffering a fractured pelvis in a fall at home.

Born Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains, to a grocer and a registered nurse, James Earl Carter Jr. was a graduate of the US Naval Academy who went on to become the governor of Georgia. In 1976, the Democrat was swept into the White House in the post-Watergate backlash against the Washington political establishment.

But the economic recession and foreign policy woes — especially the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, when dissidents stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans captive for an agonizing 444 days — doomed his re-election bid. In 1980, Carter lost to Republican Ronald Reagan in a landslide.

In recent decades, Carter focused on humanitarian and charity work, notably the Habitat for Humanity housing program and the Carter Presidential Center, which promotes human rights. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.