Jasmine is not-for-profit organisation dedicated to providing high-calibre care to anyone in the Cayman Islands living with any chronic disease.
Jasmine offers palliative care, hospice care, and bereavement support.
No. Jasmine is available to anyone living with any chronic disease. Illnesses Jasmine can help with include (but are NOT limited to): heart disease, dementia & Alzheimer’s, and renal failure.
All services provided by Jasmine are completely free. No patient will receive a bill, regardless of diagnosis, prognosis, immigration status or ability to pay.
Jasmine doesn’t claim against insurance for any services. We may use a patient’s insurance to cover costs of medication if available, but there is not fee for services provided.
No. Jasmine does not offer any form of financial assistance, but as we have been working in the community for over 22 years, we can help you access various means of other social support services.
Palliative care is specialized medical care for people living with a serious illness. This type of care is focused on providing relief from the symptoms and stress of the illness. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family.
Palliative care is based on the needs of the patient, not on the patient’s prognosis. It is appropriate at any age and at any stage in a serious illness, and it can be provided along with curative treatment.
No! Studies have shown that patients with appropriate pain and symptom management, and a network of support (basically, Palliative Care in a nutshell) often live longer and enjoy a better quality of life than those without.
Not at all. Accepting palliative care simply means that you are getting help with the symptoms of your disease or the treatment for your disease. For example, you may still be undergoing chemotherapy in an attempt to cure your cancer and put you into remission, but the side-effects of the chemo can range from uncomfortable to debilitating. Palliative care helps manage your symptoms, side effects, and emotional well-being at every stage of your disease.
Other than pain, the Palliative Care team may treat symptoms including:
Absolutely. Palliative Care does not mean you’re giving up or stopping curative treatment, it simply means you are getting additional support for symptoms of your disease and/or side-effects of your treatment. Children living with chronic diseases can benefit from palliative care just as much, if not more, than their adult counter parts.
You do NOT need a referral from your doctor to get started. Anyone can refer a patient: a family member, a friend, or you can even self-refer. If a patient is referred by someone else, we only ask that the patient is aware that we are being consulted and that they are open to talking with us about the services we can provide for them.
The Jasmine Team will make arrangements to visit the patient to assess their needs and discuss how we might be able to help. We will then ask for permission to consult with the patients primary care doctor so that we can all work together as a team.
No. Jasmine has a team of nurses and caregivers that will visit patients in the comfort of their own home, at the hospital, or wherever the patient may be.
No. While Jasmine has two doctors on staff to support the nursing team your primary care physician will remain on your care team unless you are discharged from your curative treatments they provide and transferred fully into Jasmine’s care. At this point, Jasmine’s physicians will your main contact and will work with you and your family every step of the way.
While Jasmine nurses and caregivers can’t stay with any one patient 24-hours a day, we will support you, your family, and your support network through caring for you in the home for as long as possible. We can even provide education on how to do everything.
If it becomes too much, Jasmine has a beautiful villa where you can come for short-term 24-hour/day care. The stays are usually limited to two weeks and a meant to be used only for transition from hospital to home if you need more time to adjust the home to be more user friendly (installing ramps/hospital beds, etc), to offer short-term respite to our patients and their families, or for end-of-life hospice support.
Respite Care is when the patient who may not be end-of-life, or even require a significant amount of home-support stays at the Jasmine Villa in order to give the family caregiver(s) a break for travel or rest.
We understand it can be difficult to care for someone in your home, so we are here to support those families.
Respite care is only available to those patients who are on Jasmine’s service.
Hospice care is a service for people with serious illnesses who choose not to get (or continue) treatment to cure or control their illness. People may choose to enroll in hospice care if the treatment is unlikely to be effective or if continuing it has become too burdensome. Hospice aims to provide comfort and peace to help improve the quality of life for the person nearing death.
Many people with chronic illnesses use hospice care. A chronic illness may be defined as a disease or condition with a high risk of death, or one that negatively affects a person’s quality of life and ability to perform daily tasks. It may cause symptoms or have treatments that affect daily life and lead to caregiver stress. Examples of serious illnesses include dementia, cancer, heart failure, and chronic obstructive lung disease.
Despite the benefits of using hospice care, many people wait to receive hospice care until the final days of life. It’s important to talk with your doctor about your illness and how your disease is progressing. Starting hospice early may be able to provide months of meaningful care and quality time with loved ones.
Hospice care can provide a range of different services depending on your symptoms and end-of-life care wishes. These services include but are not limited to, emotional and spiritual support for the person and their family, relief of symptoms and pain, help with advance care planning, therapy services, like physical or occupational therapy, and much more.
Yes! Jasmine will follow a family for at least a year after a patient passes away. We will start by checking in on you all with visits or phone calls quite regularly, then let them taper off as you adjust to your new normal.
Jasmine also has monthly events like Lunch Club & Memory Circle that offer additional opportunities for fellowship and support.
For those individuals or families who are just having a hard time navigating the grief, Jasmine can provide up to 4 free one-on-one sessions with a certified grief counsellor to help you find the tools to cope.
This is an extremely common concept called “anticipatory grief”. Almost all patients will have some challenges reckoning their expectations for their life, and the reality they may be facing with a chronic illness. Jasmine will provide up to 4 sessions with a certified counsellor to help you and/or your family understand and come to terms with what is happening.
Jasmine can also provide reading materials, talking points, and support for these tough conversations.
Jasmine depends on caring volunteers to provide support to our patients and their families. As a volunteer, you can help in ways that mean so much to others. Hold a hand, read a book, answer a phone, walk a pet, relieve a family member for a time, and do some shopping. The list is endless. You can also help on the administration side: assist with events, help in the office, even run errands.