Jimmy Carter, a former US president, discontinued medical treatment and entered hospice care.
The 98-year-old would be transferred to a hospice after “a succession of brief hospital admissions,” according to a statement released by the Carter Center on Saturday, February 18.
“Former US President Jimmy Carter today chose to spend his final days at home with his family and accept hospice care rather than additional medical treatment,” the statement said.
“He has the full support of his family and medical staff,” it said. The Carter family requests privacy at this time and appreciates the concerns of his many fans.
President Carter presided over the country for four years, from 1977 to 1981. He founded the Carter Center in 1982, which has aided many humanitarian initiatives.
President Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for co-founding the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which supports global disease prevention and eradication efforts, election monitoring, and peace talks.
In 1994, he went to North Korea on behalf of then-President Bill Clinton on a peace mission. In 2007, he declared his membership in The Elders, a group of independent world leaders, including Nelson Mandela and Kofi Annan, who collaborate on peace and human rights issues.
When President George H.W. Bush died in 2019 at 94, he became the president who had lived the longest.
President Carter was diagnosed with metastatic cancer in 2015, but he did not specify where cancer began.
Later that year, he revealed that melanoma had been discovered in his brain and liver and that he had begun treatment with radiation therapy and an immunotherapy medicine. In December 2015, he stated that his cancer tests had returned negative.
The politician fell several times in 2019 and later underwent surgery in the hospital to relieve pressure on his brain caused by the falls’ bleeding.
In the forty years since leaving office, he has written 30 books, the most recently published only five years ago.
Before the COVID-19 epidemic, Jimmy continued to teach Sunday school in Plains, Georgia and would spend a week each year with his wife Rosalynn, whom he married in 1946, assisting with Habitat for Humanity.
Jimmy and Rosalynn have three sons, Jack, James III, and Donnel, and one daughter, Amy. They also have 13 great-grandchildren and 12 grandchildren.