Healthcare in the Cayman Islands

Cayman is fortunate to have over 200 registered healthcare facilities, including pharmacies, laboratories, physician practices and therapy clinics, over 700 registered practitioners and numerous private specialists. The combined work of all these facilities has helped keep Cayman’s community safe providing world-class medical care.

First Things First: Get Coverage

The plans to separate the Public Health Department from the Health Services Authority continue, with the goal of creating an autonomous public entity managed independently by core Government. According to the Ministry for Health and Wellness, such an undertaking will take time and present considerable legislative challenges. In the interim, the ever-evolving partnership of public, private and non-profit entities operating in Cayman’s healthcare sphere continues to be beneficial to all groups in the community. In fact, given the broad variety of services available, you can find quality care for most medical situations. However, the excellent healthcare available comes at a considerable price, so it is essential that you have either a health insurance policy that covers travel if you are visiting, or health insurance coverage if you are a resident. Click her for more information on Health Insurance.

Healthcare Sector Growth

Cayman can justifiably boast a world-class healthcare service, particularly when one considers its size and population. According to the latest figures from the Economics and Statistics Office, we are fortunate to have over 2,000 registered healthcare professionals in public and private employment across the Islands, working in facilities that include hospitals, pharmacies, laboratories, physician practices and therapy clinics.

In 2024, the Health Services Authority (HSA) continued its strategic innovation and development to expand its services, focusing on standards and accreditation, accessibility, specialised offerings and improving patient experience. The attainment of Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation represents a major achievement for the HSA, solidifying its reputation as being consistent and compliant with international standards and having the ability to provide comprehensive care in a safe environment. This was reflected at the Best of Cayman Awards 2024, whereupon the HSA was voted best in seven categories, receiving gold in Chiropractic, Oncology, Occupational Therapy and Urgent Care/Walk-in Clinic and silver awards in the categories of Speech Therapy, Behavioural/Mental Health and Paediatrics.

The HSA have introduced a number of new services and enhanced existing ones, including neurology, an adolescent mental health hub (Alex’s Place) and a geriatric clinic. In addition, they have increased the capacity of their accident and emergency facilities to improve the level of care for patients, bolstered their orthopaedics department by hiring a consultant orthopaedic and spine surgeon, and increased the number of speech and language therapists on staff. Coupled with infrastructure and logistic upgrades, the HSA aims to consolidate its reputation as a leading health services provider on the Islands. With competition now fierce in the health sector marketplace, the HSA refreshed its presence in the public domain with new marketing collateral, in the hope that it effectively communicates their desire to provide a high standard of care using modern facilities. An ideal further underscored by their tagline, “Committed to caring for you.”

In the Private Sector

There's been a a similar interest in prioritising inclusivity and accessibility for all patients across the Cayman Islands. For instance, Health City Cayman Islands, which established a 110-bed hospital in East End in 2014, has now constructed a new US$100+ million super-specialty hospital in Camana Bay.

The new facility features a dedicated cancer care centre, maternity and neonatal intensive care unit, emergency pavilion, critical care unit and emergency, multi-specialty programme, including an expansion on robotic-assisted surgery, which was introduced to the Island by Health City for the first time last year. In March 2023, the hospital’s Radiation Oncology Centre opened, and gave life-saving treatment to its first patients on May 17th, 2023. The new 70,000sq ft hospital and level 1 trauma centre was inaugurated in July of 2024.

These new facilities cement Grand Cayman as a medical tourism destination in the Caribbean, being the first in the region to offer bone marrow transplantation, CAR-T cell therapy and a one-of-a-kind neonatal intensive care unit. Globally speaking, concierge medicine and bespoke health and wellness businesses are becoming commonplace, and Cayman is no exception, with facilities that are integrating clinical therapies with holistic practices.

Other Health News

In late 2023, the results of the STEPS medical survey carried out earlier in the year found 70% of the Islands’ residents to be overweight and 37% to be obese, which indicated almost no change from a similar survey carried out in 2012. The survey is a tool to assess the level of health risk factors for non-communicable diseases in a nation’s population. Whilst alarming, the results were not dissimilar to those found in the US recently. Medical experts believe these results are a result of the population consuming imported, processed foods, and adopting similar eating habits to our international neighbours.

More worrying is that, according to the Public Health Department’s school entry screening obesity data report for the 2023-2024 school year, 9% of children were overweight and a further 13% were obese. You can lean more about Cayman's childhood obesity epidemic by reading this article on Cayman Parent.com. Cayman faces huge sociological, economic and educational challenges to bring these figures down. With these findings in mind, it came as no surprise that in May of 2024, the Ministry of Health & Wellness conducted a public consultation to help shape a new National Health Strategy for all three Islands, the results of which are pending.

In August of 2024, changes to the Pharmacy Act came into effect with an overhaul of the existing 45-year-old legislation. The Act includes a new regulatory framework for the importation, manufacture, wholesale, and dispensing of medicines, as well as new licensing measures for making and selling medicines locally, and restrictions on international mail-order medicines. The bill also allows for the use of non-approved medicines in emergencies.

Elsewhere in medical law, abortion is still illegal in Cayman, and since the overturning of Roe vs Wade in the US courts in 2022, residents of the Islands have even fewer options when seeking an abortion overseas. The Cayman Law Reform Commission is finalising its recommendations for amendments to Cayman’s own abortion legislation, with a view to expanding the grounds for which one can seek an abortion legally in the Islands.

In East End, the much-touted and large inpatient mental health facility, ultimately named the Ponciana Rehabilitation Centre, opened at the end of 2025 after years of delays and budget overruns. The administration building and nine cottages, the latter housing up to six patients each, were originally budgeted at around CI$15 million but by 2024, that figure had ballooned to over $23m. The 15-acre facility was intended to help fill a critical gap in Cayman’s long-term mental healthcare resources. However, as of February 2025 the facility remains minimally occupied with inpatients. The Government finds itself in the process of rethinking how best to make full use of the facility, including the option of incarcerating the criminally insane.

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