Former President Bill Clinton and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton thank the medical staff as he is released from the University of California Irvine Medical Center in Orange, Calif., Sunday, Oct. 17, 2021. The 75-year-old former president left University of California Irvine Medical Center on Sunday. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Members of the media stand outside the University of California Irvine Medical Center in Orange, Calif., Saturday, Oct. 16, 2021. A spokesman says former president Bill Clinton will spend one more night at the hospital where he is recovering from an infection. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Former President Bill Clinton and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leave the University of California Irvine Medical Center in Orange, Calif., Sunday, Oct. 17, 2021. He was released after being treated for an infection and will head home to New York to continue his recovery, a spokesman said. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Former President Bill Clinton, right, and Former first lady and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton thanks Internal Medicine Alpesh N. Amin, MD, third from left, and the medical staff as he is released from the University of California Irvine Medical Center in Orange, Calif., Sunday, Oct. 17, 2021. The 75-year-old former president left University of California Irvine Medical Center on Sunday. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Former President Bill Clinton and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton thank the medical staff as he is released from the University of California Irvine Medical Center in Orange, Calif., Sunday, Oct. 17, 2021. The 75-year-old former president left University of California Irvine Medical Center on Sunday. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Former first lady and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives at the University of California Irvine Medical Center in Orange, Calif., Sunday, Oct. 17, 2021. Former President Clinton spent a fourth night at the Southern California hospital where he is recovering from an infection but is expected to be released Sunday after making great progress, a spokesman said. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
The University of California Irvine Medical Center is seen in Orange, Calif., Saturday, Oct. 16, 2021. A spokesman says former president Bill Clinton will spend one more night at the hospital where he is recovering from an infection. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Bill Clinton was released Sunday from the Southern California hospital where he had been treated for an infection and will head home to New York to continue his recovery, a spokesman said.
The former president left the University of California Irvine Medical Center around 8 a.m. with Hillary Clinton on his arm. Dressed in jeans and a sports coat and wearing a face mask, he made his way out of the hospital slowly and stopped to shake hands with doctors and nurses lined up on the sidewalk.
President Bill Clinton was just released from #UCIMedicalCenter in Orange. He was escorted by his wife. He waved and gave a thumbs up while shaking hands with all@the doctors. He was admitted Tuesday after suffering from an infection in his blood and urine. @CBSLA pic.twitter.com/Om4S4wvbBW
— Joy Benedict (@joybenedict) October 17, 2021
He gave a thumbs-up when a reporter asked how he was feeling, and he and Hillary Clinton then boarded a black SUV. They departed in a motorcade escorted by the California Highway Patrol and headed to the airport.
Bill Clinton’s “fever and white blood cell count are normalized, and he will return home to New York to finish his course of antibiotics,” Dr. Alpesh N. Amin said in a statement shared on Twitter by a Clinton spokesman.
Statement from Dr. Alpesh N. Amin, Chair, Department of Medicine and Executive Director, Hospital Medicine at UC Irvine Health, who has been overseeing the team of doctors treating President Clinton pic.twitter.com/n3mJHesjfC
— Angel Ureña (@angelurena) October 17, 2021
Clinton, 75, was admitted Tuesday to the hospital southeast of Los Angeles with an infection unrelated to COVID-19. He plans to continue his recovery at his home in Chappaqua, New York, officials said.
Spokesman Angel Ureña had said Saturday that Clinton would remain hospitalized one more night to receive further intravenous antibiotics. But all health indicators were “trending in the right direction,” Ureña said.
“President Clinton has continued to make excellent progress over the past 24 hours,” Ureña said.
Hillary Clinton has been with her husband at the hospital and was accompanied there Saturday by daughter Chelsea.
President Joe Biden said Friday night that he had spoken to Bill Clinton, and the former president “sends his best.”
“He’s doing fine; he really is,” Biden said during remarks at the University of Connecticut.
An aide to the former president said Bill Clinton had a urological infection that spread to his bloodstream, but he is on the mend and never went into septic shock, a potentially life-threatening condition.
The aide, who spoke to reporters at the hospital on the condition his name wasn’t used, said Clinton was in an intensive care section of the hospital but wasn’t receiving ICU care.
In the years since Clinton left the White House in 2001, the former president has faced health scares. In 2004, he underwent quadruple bypass surgery after experiencing prolonged chest pains and shortness of breath. He returned to the hospital for surgery for a partially collapsed lung in 2005, and in 2010 he had a pair of stents implanted in a coronary artery.
He responded by embracing a largely vegan diet that saw him lose weight and report improved health.
Clinton repeatedly returned to the stump, campaigning for Democratic candidates, most notably Hillary Clinton during her failed 2008 bid for the presidential nomination. And in 2016, as Hillary Clinton sought the White House as the Democratic nominee, her husband — by then a grandfather and nearing 70 — returned to the campaign trail.