Ex-President Carter enters hospice care, charity says

ATLANTA — Former President Jimmy Carter has entered home hospice care, the charity founded by the longest-living U.S. president in history said Saturday.

The Carter Center said on Twitter that after a series of short hospital stays, the 98-yearold former president “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.”

Carter, a Democrat, became the 39th U.S. president when he defeated former President Gerald R. Ford in 1976. He served a single term and was defeated by Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980.

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.

At the time, Carter Center leaders said the former president, who survived a cancer diagnosis in 2015 and a serious fall at home in 2019, was enjoying reading congratulatory messages sent by well-wishers around the world via social media and the center's website even before the actual birthday.

James Earl Carter Jr. won the 1976 presidential election after beginning the campaign as a little-known, one-term Georgia governor. 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.