Public hospitals to add 4,000 beds by 2030; new hospital to be built in Tengah: Ong Ye Kung

Singapore will increase its hospital capacity over the next six years by adding 4,000 beds to public hospitals, Minister for Health Ong Ye Kung announced in Parliament on Wednesday (March 6).

Addressing the House during his ministry's Committee of Supply debate, Ong said that there are currently more than 11,000 public hospital beds in Singapore. 

"We should see new capacity coming on stream every year from now to 2030," he said. 

The health minister also shared that the capacity crunch in hospitals is due to an increase in elderly patients with more complex conditions, who require longer stays.

"To tackle the challenge more fundamentally, we need to expand capacity, and catch up for the time lost due to Covid-19," said Ong. 

Elaborating on how the additional beds will be rolled out, he shared that Woodlands Health Campus will commission up to 700 beds in 2024 and 2025. 

The Singapore General Hospital (SGH) Emergency Medicine Building, which is slated to open this year, will have about 150 beds, and the SGH Elective Care Centre, which opens in 2027, will have 300 beds. 

In 2026, Sengkang General Hospital and Outram Community Hospital will increase their capacity by about 350 beds. This will be achieved by converting non-clinical spaces into hospital wards. 

Finally, Alexandra Hospital and the Eastern General General Hospital Campus at Bedok North will progressively open their new areas between 2028 and 2030.

New hospital to be built in Tengah by 2030s 

To further address the hospital capacity crunch in public hospitals, Ong announced that his ministry has started planning for a new integrated general and community hospital in Tengah Town to serve the growing population in the west. 

The new hospital will be operated by the National University Health System (NUHS), and will complement the current hospitals in the west — Ng Teng Fong General Hospital and Jurong Community Hospital.

"We have just completed one in the north, Woodlands Health, are building another in the east, and expanding SGH in the central region. So, the next new public hospital should be in the west," Ong said as he explained why Tengah was chosen. 

With the addition of Tengah and the Eastern General Hospital Campus, Singapore will have 13 public acute hospitals and 12 community hospitals in the early 2030s. 

On top of that, MOH has plans for a new non-profit private hospital, which will cater primarily to Singaporeans from 2030, Ong shared.

MIC@Home to become mainstream model of care

Besides expanding hospital capacity, the health minister told the House that the Mobile Inpatient Care-at-Home (MIC@Home) will become a mainstream model of care in public healthcare institutions from April 1.

MIC@Home was launched as a pilot programme in June 2022 to alleviate the crunch for hospital beds. 

The programme allows eligible patients to be cared for in their homes instead of a hospital ward, and are monitored remotely by care teams. 

"Patients can be assured that they will not pay any more for this service than they do for acute inpatient care in a public hospital. All our hospitals intend to price MIC@Home similar to or lower than a normal ward," said Ong. 

He added that MIC@Home patients will be supported by subsidies, MediShield Life, MediSave, making it "no different from a physical inpatient stay". 

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claudiatan@asiaone.com