About Us

MISSION & VALUES

Central to our founders’ philosophy on care is a mission that guides our entire team in giving care every day, every hour, to every client.

As the ageing population demographic in western societies out-paces other age demographics, there is – and will continue to be – increased pressure on public health systems. The provision of good quality care in Jamaica for seniors has never been so relevant as it is now.

Our

VALUE STATEMENTS

  • We value and respect our clients and their families and strive to always provide open, honest, accountable dialogue with our clients and their families.
  • We value and respect our clients’ choice of how and where to spend
    their lives.
  • We value our clients’ and or their families’ abilities to share in decision making.
  • We value and respect our clients’ cultural and religious affiliation.
  • We value our staff as professionals.
  • We value our staff members as individuals; we value their knowledge and experience and the way they make a difference every day to our business.
  • We value our responsibility to our community and strive to be known as a beacon of excellence in our local community and the national care sector.

Our Misson

To provide the best standards of holistic health and high-quality medical care based on the principles of respect, dignity, responsiveness and compassion – enabling our clients to live happy, fulfilled lives in their sunset years.

Our Vision

  • To offer affordable care in a safe environment of benefit to clients
    and family members
  • To create and maintain a good working relationship with other service
    providers and the community
  • To offer a spiritually enriching environment to all who need this
    aspect of care

KEN HEALTH CARE

MANAGEMENT

Ken Health Care’s Board of Directors supports all of our onsite and off-site work with ageing seniors. The board‘s comprehensive experience spans the fields of medicine, pharmacy, nursing, social work and pastoral care and supports our provision of high quality care.

Board members are:
Chair: Dr. D. Robert Kennedy, PhD, Ed.D; STM
Co-Founder & Clinical Director: Lyn-Kennedy-McKenzie, M.A., R.N (Registered Nurse); Public Health Nurse
Co-Founder & Financial Controller: Nylann Kennedy
Secretary: Dr Eveythe Kennedy-Cargill, PhD
Sonia Kennedy-Brown, M.A. (Nursing Sciences), R.N (Registered Nurse)
Marlow Francis, R.N (Registered Nurse) & Nurse Practitioner
Frank Kennedy, M.A. Counselling & Social Work

As a family firm, Ken Health Care is blessed to have so many skilled individuals on its board with vested interests in the care of the elderly – from counselling and social work to pastoral care.

D. Robert Kennedy, PhD, STM; Ed.D

Chair of Ken Health Care Board

US-based Dr. D. Robert Kennedy is not only an esteemed former university and college senior administrator; he is also highly regarded as a theologian, professor and a published author of books spanning theology and religion, family life, relationships and self-enrichment.

With extensive pastoral and chaplaincy experience, Dr. Kennedy or “DK” as he is affectionately known has a natural affinity to seniors and is a passionate advocate of those who need supportive pastoral care including spiritual guidance as they near the ends of their lives.

Reviewing all aspects of Ken Health Care’s operations alongside the board, he ensures that the institution goes above and beyond its duty of care to meet its statutory legal obligations and fulfil its mission.

Dr. Kennedy is certified in Non-Profit Leadership. He has pastored in New York and New Jersey over some three decades with the Seventh Day Adventist church, also serving his communities as a Police and Volunteer Hospital Chaplain.

With his wife, Dr Seslie Kennedy, a former educator who co-authors and presents family life seminars, DK enjoys travelling for speaking engagements all over the world, gardening, woodworking and spending quality time with his three sons and eight grandchildren.

Lyn Kennedy-McKenzie, M.A., R.N

Co-Founder & Clinical Director

Ken Health Care’s clinical mission is led and managed day-to-day by Iverlin Kennedy-McKenzie (or Lyn as she is known).

A State Registered Nurse, State Certified Midwife and Health Visitor with several years of bedside and community nursing experience gained in England, Lyn is certified by both the Nursing Council for England and Wales and the Nursing Council of Jamaica.

Lyn’s passion for assisting those who are ageing to live out their sunset years with dignity and to their fullest potential is renowned throughout and outside of the Manchester region. She is an outspoken advocate and public speaker for the rights of the elderly to be treated with dignity and loving care by those professionally charged to care for them. She also strongly believes in holistic care and has led Ken Health Care’s innovative inclusion of complimentary therapies in the treatment plans of all clients.

Lyn loves nothing more than mixing up freshly made, nutritious smoothies for the residents or those living in their own hones – with fruits and vegetables picked from the Ken Health Care gardens. In her down-time, she is green-fingered and has taken to bottling her own honey, harvested from the Ken Health Care bee hives. Her love of beautiful flowers ensures that the Ken Health Care grounds are always awash with colour and blooms for residents, their visitors and staff to enjoy.

With three adult children living abroad, Lyn indulges her passion for reading, enjoys travelling to far-flung places and embodies the spirit of living life graciously and to the full.

Nylann Kennedy

Co-Founder & Financial Controller

Nylann’s professional background as a social worker, teacher, youth worker and latterly as the owner of a building development company of 20+ years puts him in a unique position within Ken Health Care. He is quite literally known as the company’s “backbone”.

Nylann has a handle on almost every aspect of running Ken Health Care including finance, procurement, marketing and running the plant with his maintenance team.

Nylann is a pillar of his community, operating as Head Elder of his church, Choir Director and leading several voluntary community programmes such as adult literacy and gardening projects.

In the little spare time he has, he enjoys farming on the family small-holding pineapple farm and travelling to the UK and to Canada with his wife, Daisy to see their five children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

KEN HEALTH CARE

Our Team

The Ken Health Care team of registered nurses, health care assistants, operational staff and managers welcome you to Ken Health Care, Manchester, Jamaica. [Photo: prior to Covid-19 social distancing rules, January 2020]

In 2006, the Kennedys’, a family of nine siblings, were faced with a dilemma: how to provide high quality, dignified round-the-clock care for their 92-year old mother, Mary on the Caribbean island of Jamaica.

While care homes were dotted throughout the Manchester region, the siblings were uncomfortable with the choice of homes and limited care services for seniors on offer.

With most of the siblings living overseas, Jamaica-based Iverlin Kennedy-McKenzie, a qualified nurse and expert in geriatric care searched high and low for a facility to cater for her mother’s complex medical needs. Unsuccessful in her search, Iverlin founded Ken Health Care with the blessing of her siblings to meet the needs of seniors wanting superior holistic care or help with daily living.

Our Facility

As well as housing a 26-bed residential facility, Ken Health Care provides home-care solutions for those who prefer to or are able to live in their own homes.

We offer bespoke care solutions to meet the needs of the individual including:

  • 24-hour residential care
  • Post-hospital / surgical care
  • In-home personal care assistance and companionship
  • Dementia and Alzheimer’s specialist care

We also facilitate short stay / respite care to give temporary relief to carers for short periods.

Our services cater not only to the physical but to the emotional, intellectual and spiritual wellbeing of all our residents – without prejudice to protected characteristics of race, origin, gender, age, disability, religion or political persuasion.

Our Ethos

From personal experience gleaned in different countries, we know what it is like to be worried about someone else caring (or neglecting to care) for a loved one. We understand the emotional journey of entrusting a stranger with the care of someone precious.

Our company is founded on the tenets of our Christian faith, which means that every day, our team carry out our ethos of the Golden Rule to ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’

Our highly trained, professionally qualified, fully insured and thoroughly vetted staff team are fully invested in giving compassionate, superb quality and specialist care and upholding our care quality standards.

Several Kennedy family members contribute to the knowledge base of Ken Health Care from their professional experience in the medical and paramedical fields.

Mrs. Beryl Gordon

Manager

Nurse Beryl Gordon has played a central part in the Ken Health Care success story for the better part of a decade, since 2011.

She is a trained and Certified Health Care Assistant through The National Council on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (NCTVET) Levels 2 & 3 and has been qualified in giving care to the elderly for 20 years.

Known for her gentle smile and caring disposition, Mrs. Gordon has also used her gentle, gifted hands to soothe and provide therapeutic comfort to many clients over the years.  She is a Certified Massage Technician, enabling her to provide this additional level of therapeutic support to clients, particularly those who are arthritic.

Beryl Gordon pursued a course in Supervisory Management from the University of the West Indies, which led to her being part of the Management Team of this prestigious institution – Ken Health Care Ltd. since 2016.

Her love and passion for nursing has led her to be a volunteer of the senior citizen’s group in her community for the past eighteen years.

“Caring for people can be rewarding when you are able to make a difference in someone’s life.” That is Nurse Beryl’s mantra.