JML Care Center was the right choice for this patient’s recuperation
Martha Stasey hadn’t planned on spending part of her winter at the JML Care Center® in Falmouth, but she thinks it turned out to be a good decision.
Stasey, 85, who lives in Falmouth, prefers her usual routines of hanging out with friends, exercising and walking her mini-poodle, Petunia. But late last winter, she ran into some complications with COVID-19, pneumonia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). After nine days in Falmouth Hospital, she spent almost three weeks at JML for rehabilitation therapies.
“It was so clean and everyone was caring,” she said. “Even the man that swept the floors was wondering every day how I was. Very sweet.”
JML recently earned the U.S. News and World Report designation as a Best Nursing Home for 2024 in the publication’s annual review of more than 15,000 skilled nursing homes. JML was among the elite 16 percent of skilled nursing facilities that received a “High Performing” rating for short-term rehabilitation.
Opened in the 1980s, partly due to a $5 million gift from philanthropist Josiah Lilly, a longtime donor to Falmouth Hospital and other Cape institutions, the 132-bed skilled nursing center offers rehabilitation, long-term, sub-acute and hospice care, and is named after Lilly’s wife, Josephine M. Lilly. JML also offers an adult daycare program.
Stasey likes that JML has all private rooms. And, she’s a big fan of the staff and can still run down a list of their names, from night nurses to therapists to aides.
“They work so hard,” she said.
“I chose JML because I figured I’d get more therapy if I went there, and I did. They were wonderful. The therapy department was so good.”
JML made her feel at home, she said. In fact, her husband was able to bring Petunia in for a visit.
“I could sense that it was a nice place right away – welcoming – and couldn’t have been nicer.”
JML Executive Director Colleen Pino said compliments and praise for the staff are common among patients during and after their stay at the facility.
“Our secret ingredient; what we call the ‘JML Pixie Dust,’ is the care and devotion of our staff,” she said. “They work very hard and hold themselves to very high standards to insure the needs of each patient are met, and they do so with great compassion.”
Now Stasey is back at home, where she and Petunia are keeping an eye on the squirrels clamoring at her bird feeders. She has a couple of upcoming medical procedures that she’s been told are minor. But she’s not worried.
“If need be, I'd go back there, to JML, without any hesitation,” she said. “They made me get better.”
