Carter’s health has remained ‘unaffected’ since entering hospice care

Politics

by Rich Calder

Former President Jimmy Carter’s health has “remained unchanged” since he entered hospice care in Georgia about 16 months ago, his grandson said.

Jason Carter, the oldest of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter’s 22 grandchildren, recently told Southern Living magazine that the frail 99-year-old former commander in chief is “experiencing as much of the world as he can as he goes through this process.”

“God had a different plan,” his brother, Carter, said of his grandfather’s unexpected longevity after beginning hospice care in their hometown of Plains, Georgia.

Rosalynn Carter died in November.

“After 77 years of marriage … I don’t think any of us really know what our husbands are feeling right now,” Jason Carter said.

“We have to accept the fact that there are some things about the mind that we just don’t understand.”

The average hospice stay is about 70 days, but most stays for just two weeks.

Carter entered hospice care in February 2023.

Jason said he visited his grandfather a few weeks ago, watched an Atlanta Braves game and talked about the former president’s nonprofit organization, the Carter Center, and his family.

He also asked the 99-year-old man how he was doing.

“I said to him, ‘Dad, you know, when people ask me how I’m doing, I say, ‘I honestly don’t know,'” Jason recalled. “And he just kind of smiled and said, ‘I don’t know either.’ I was so happy,” he added.