Tender Of Salesite In Lorong 6 Toa Payoh For A Private Nursing Home

25 Jul 2000

Toa Payoh Sale Site

The Ministry of Health will be launching its first sale site for a purpose-built private nursing home at Toa Payoh on 26 Jul 2000.

The Toa Payoh sale site is located at Lorong 6 adjacent to Toa Payoh East Community Club. The site is 0.2ha with a required gross plot ratio of 1.8. As a guide, it can accommodate about 200 nursing home beds. Some of the medical facilities near the sale site are Toa Payoh Polyclinic, Ren Ci Community Hospital and Medical Centre, and Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

For the Toa Payoh sale site, MOH new requirements of space norms for dormitory and sanitary provisions together with essential facilities will be introduced as part of the licensing requirements for nursing home operation. These new requirements are meant to set the minimum standards of care and services for all nursing homes in Singapore.

The Toa Payoh tender is open to both the present pool of private operators and those who are interested in providing nursing home services to meet the needs of our elderly population.

The Need for More Nursing Home Beds

Singapore's elderly population is projected to increase from 220,000 today to 312,000 by the year 2010. As a result, we will need a total of 8,800 nursing home beds by the year 2010. Currently we have about 5,500 beds provided by 50 nursing homes of which about 30% is run by private operators. About 3,500 additional beds will have to be built to meet the additional demand as well as to replace those on temporary permits.

To cater to the needs of Singaporeans who prefer to be cared for in more comfortable nursing homes, MOH would encourage more private nursing home operators to increase their market share of nursing home beds to 40% of the national projection by the year 2010. This means that private nursing operators will provide 3,500 beds out of the total requirement of 8,800 nursing home beds by year 2010.

Private Nursing Home Sale Site Programme

To facilitate this, the Government will be launching sale site programme for private nursing homes starting from this month.

Each sale site which can provide about 200 beds will have a lease period of 30 years. Another 13 to 15 sale sites will be identified and released gradually to the private operators over the next few years. The longer land tenure would enable private operators to invest with a longer term horizon and to obtain reasonable rates of return on their investment.

To facilitate easy access of nursing home services for the community, most of the proposed sale sites will be located near or in HDB towns. The Government will review the sale site programme regularly to ensure that sufficient sites are available to meet the national demand for private nursing home beds.

Tender Announcement for Toa Payoh Sale Site

Tender invitation for Toa Payoh sale site will be announced by HDB on 26 July 2000 through local newspapers. The tender invitation can also be viewed on both the HDB Infoweb and Ministry of Health website via http://www.gov.sg/moh/mohiss/websites.html from 26 July.