Doctors Hospital Supporting Cayman Arts Festival and Young Musicians

Doctors Hospital is helping to give the gift of art and music by supporting the CaymanArts Festival (CAF) in 2022, including the young Caymanian musician and rising star, Dequan Smith.

Cayman Arts Festival, established in 2003, supports more than 250 musically inclined students through its after-school music programme, concerts, and annual two-week music festival. Doctors Hospital’s contributions will be supporting the many projects of the organisation throughout the year, which help Cayman children and youth thrive. Dr Sidney Ebanks, General Physician and Chair of the DH Community Advisory Council, said of the new sponsorship, “The arts have a profound effect on the healing journey of patients. We have witnessed how the arts can help people heal, whether it is a teenager working on an art project during chemotherapy treatment or an elderly patient listening to music to help with cognitive health. Evidence suggests that the arts help reduce stress, elevate mood, and lower blood pressure. Both CAF and Doctors Hospital began two decades ago, and so we have seen the program grow as we have grown, and we have admired the work CAF has done to support Cayman’s artists. We see our partnership with them as an extension of our own work in providing a space for recovery and wellness.”

One other way that Doctors Hospital has provided immediate support is through funding Caymanian musician and musical prodigy Dequan Smith, including his trip as a finalist to the 2022 Caribbean Young Musician Award in the Dominican Republic. As the first Caymanian to be a finalist for the award, Doctors Hospital helped make it possible for him to travel to the competition. The hospital is also helping support his training at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland as of September 2022, after three of the top music schools in the world offered him a place to study at their prestigious institutions.

Marius Gaina, Executive Director of CAF, says, “We are so happy to see this partnership come to fruition. For us, it has been very rewarding to see that a prestigious entity such as Doctors Hospital is willing to partner with us and support our activities. It is evident that they see the value in the work that we do for the community. Their help will enable us to further improve the programmes that we offer, which will directly impact the students enrolled in them.”

“As a long-standing Cayman health provider,” says Dr Ebanks, “we know we must support this type of program for our country so that it can continue to be a place that inspires, entertains, and educates.”