Updated February 18, 2023 at 6:38 PM ET
Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, was moved to hospice care on Saturday.
"After a series of short hospital stays, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter today decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention," the Carter Center said in a on Saturday.
— The Carter Center (@CarterCenter)
Carter, who turned 98 in October, served as president from 1977 to 1981.
The longest-lived former president has suffered from a series of health challenges in recent years, including , a and other recent hospitalizations for and .
He grew up in rural Georgia and served as governor of his state before beating incumbent Gerald Ford in the 1976 election.
And although the single-term Democratic president left the Oval office , he has spent the last several decades of his life committed to public service, including his work with the nonprofit Carter Center and Habitat for Humanity.
Carter has occasionally spoken out on political affairs in recent years. He asked Georgia's now-Governor Brian Kemp while Kemp was running for governor in 2018. In 2019, he saw Donald Trump as an illegitimate president. Carter also spoke in support of Joe Biden at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, The pair were seen making in their hometown of Plains, Ga., in August.
"The Carter family asks for privacy during this time and is grateful for the concern shown by his many admirers," the Carter Center concluded in its statement.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
