Joint Press Release Between The Ministry Of Health And Ren Ci Hospital

02 Sep 1999

The Ministry of Health (MOH) has reviewed its policy on the location of community hospitals in Singapore. It has concluded that it would be more cost effective and convenient for patients, their relatives and health care providers to have a community hospital located close to or within the complex of an acute hospital.

Community hospitals are step-down facilities for patients who have been discharged from acute hospital care. Community hospitals provide sub-acute medical care and inpatient rehabilitation for patients who do not need the level of care provided by acute hospitals. The patients themselves benefit in the form of lower charges. By being located near an acute hospital, the community hospital can tap on the expertise, services, and resources of the acute hospital. It would also facilitate the transfer of patients from the acute hospital to the community hospital and vice versa, if the need should arise.

MOH has therefore decided that all future community hospitals will be sited next to or within the complex of acute hospitals. In line with this, the new Ren Ci Community Hospital will now be sited next to Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) instead of the former Toa Payoh Hospital site as previously proposed. The Ren Ci Hospital management has accepted the change and its rationale.

As a start, MOH and Ren Ci Hospital management will convert one of the blocks of old TTSH into a 200-bedded temporary Community Hospital. This Community Hospital will be operational by 2001. In addition to this temporary Community Hospital, Ren Ci will also be operating a temporary 150-bedded Chronic Sick Hospital in some of the old wards in the old TTSH. This is an extension of their Chronic Sick Hospital in Hougang.

By around 2010, the temporary Ren Ci Community Hospital and Ren Ci Chronic Sick Hospital will be replaced by new facilities at TTSH grounds. Ren Ci will work with MOH to build and subsequently operate both these facilities at TTSH.

There is also plan for a community hospital next to a new acute hospital in the Western region. Ren Ci Hospital management has expressed interest in building and operating this community hospital.

The building funds collected by Ren Ci Hospital & Medicare Centre for the Toa Payoh hospital site will be used to build the Ren Ci Community Hospital next to TTSH and later, the community hospital in the Western region.