Former U.S. first lady’s health is ‘failing’
HOUSTON— Former U.S. first lady Barbara Bush is in “failing health” and won’t seek additional medical treatment, a Bush family spokesperson said Sunday.
“Following a recent series of hospitalizations, and after consulting her family and doctors, Mrs. Bush, now age 92, has decided not to seek additional medical treatment and will instead focus on comfort care,” spokesperson Jim McGrath said in a news release.
McGrath did not elaborate as to the nature of Bush’s health problems. For decades, she has been treated for Graves’ disease, which is a thyroid condition, had heart surgery in 2009 for a severe narrowing of her main heart valve and was hospitalized a year before that for surgery on a perforated ulcer. Bush married George H.W. Bush on Jan. 6, 1945. They have been married longer than any presidential couple in U.S. history. Eight years after they left the White House, their son George W. was sworn in as president.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, U.S. President Donald Trump’s press secretary, said in a statement Sunday that “the president’s and first lady’s prayers are with all of the Bush family during this time.”