PLAINS, Ga. ( WRBL ) — For about 19 months, President Carter has been under end-of-life care with Hospice and on the even of his 100th birthday he is bringing attention to Hospice and palliative care.
In February of last year, the Carter family announced the former president had gone into Hospice care. Many people thought it would be days or weeks before his passing, but he continues to beat the odds.
“President Carter through Habitat for Humanity and building homes, always leading the way in how to give back others and the community. So, I celebrate that he chose to have Hospice care to show he’s like all of the rest of us.”
Donna Morgan, CEO Columbus Hospice of Georgia and Alabama
CEO of Columbus Hospice of Georgia and Alabama, Donna Morgan says President Carter and his family have wrestled with the end of a long, fruitful and very public life. Choosing Hospice has brought attention to end-of-life care.
“I am so proud that Jimmy Carter chose Hospice care for his end of life care. He’s a person who would need to protect his privacy and have security around him,” Morgan said. “And he might have chosen the route of just hiring private-duty people to stay in the home with him. But instead he and his family chose a publicly available care service Hospice Care, to help him live but to the best means possible his last days.”
Hospice Chaplain Allison Owen says others have paid attention to the former president’s decision to enter Hospice care.
“I have heard over the last year of people talking about how he’s an inspiration, as he has been through most of his life, all of his life,” Owen said. “‘Well, if a president can make this decision, I can too,’ I have heard things like that.”
Even while he was in hospice care, life continued to happen for President Carter. In November of 2023, he lost his wife and companion of 77 years — Rosalyn Carter. He attended her funeral at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia despite his frail state.
“The people we encounter through Hospice are not unlike him at all. We have a shared humanity,” Owen said. “I am sure he, like all of us, wants to say we have run the race well. That we have served people well. That we have made some mark on the world in a good way – family, friends. That’s what I wish for him and all of us.”
Morgan says the eve of President Carter’s 100th birthday is a time for reflection on the kind of person he was to his community, the nation and the world.
Morgan described Georgia’s only president as, “A person of peace. A person who brings people together. And a person who has led the way for us to show what compassion can look like.”
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