Tan Tock Seng Hospital
Tan Tock Seng Hospital is a hospital located in Tan Tock Seng, Singapore
Tan Tock Seng Hospital, or TTSH, is a tertiary referral hospital in Novena, Singapore. The hospital contains 45 clinical and allied health departments, and 16 specialized centers, and employs over 8,000 people in the medical field.
The National Healthcare Group’s flagship hospital and the NTU Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine’s primary teaching hospital, TTSH, are located in Singapore. The National Center for Infectious Diseases (NCID) and two national specialist centers, the National Skin Centre (NSC) and the National Neuroscience Institute are all located on the same site (NNI).
History
Singapore developed itself as a prosperous trade center in the 1820s. Thousands of immigrants arrived in the colony with the hopes of making a fortune. Many of these immigrants were impoverished and destitute, and famine was a typical occurrence; it was believed that approximately 100 immigrants died of starvation each year.
In the 1820s, the British government established a pauper’s hospital, but it was closed due to a lack of money in the 1830s. The government then proposed that each community’s wealthier people look after their own needy. As a result, some of the community’s most charitable people stepped forward. Tan Tock Seng, Singapore’s acting Kapitan China, a prosperous businessman, and the city’s first Asian Justice of Peace, was one of these people, offering $5,000 to build the city’s first privately financed hospital.
On Pearl’s Hill, the hospital’s foundation stone was placed on May 25, 1844, under the name Chinese Pauper Hospital. The structure was created in a classical style by John Turnbull Thomson. Construction took three years, and the hospital remained unoccupied for another two years due to a lack of money. In 1849, the first patients were finally accepted. When an attap shed at the foot of Pearl’s Hill was damaged by a violent storm, some 100 sick and needy people were kept there, and the patients were transferred to the hospital.
Money was always a difficulty for the hospital in its early years, although it was sometimes relieved by gifts from donors such as other members of Tan’s family and the general public. Things were additionally challenging due to a lack of workers and a stable water supply. Tan Tock Seng, who was 52 years old at the time of his death, passed away in 1850. Tan Tock Sing Hospital was renamed (later spelled Tan Tock Seng in the 1850s).
Several times, the hospital was relocated. The colonial administration intended to fortify Pearl’s Hill, thus it was moved in 1861 to new grounds on the intersection of Serangoon Road and Balestier Road. There was also a ward for lepers. The low-lying site on which the hospital stood was eventually determined to be inadequate for the patients, and in 1903, Loke Yew donated $50,000 to purchase the property on Moulmein Road, where the current hospital sits. In 1909, the Public Works Department finished building a new hospital.
The hospital’s services and patient intake had outgrown the 1950s facility by the 1980s. On April 1, 2000, a new 15-story structure was completed and inaugurated.
The hospital became a member of the National Healthcare Group in 2000 as a consequence of a reorganization exercise in the local healthcare landscape.
Facilities
The National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID), Institute for Geriatrics & Active Ageing (IGA), NHG Eye Institute (NHGEI), TTSH Rehabilitation Centre, and Ang Mo Kio Specialist Centre is among the biggest multi-disciplinary hospitals in Singapore, with more than 1700 beds (AMKSC).
The 600-bed Integrated Treatment Hub at TTSH, which will offer subacute and rehabilitative care, will open in 2022. TTSH hosts Singapore’s largest purpose-built innovation center for healthcare, the Ng Teng Fong Centre for Healthcare Innovation (CHI), and its Co-Learning Network of 37 local and international partners, as a healthcare leader in population health, systems innovation, health technologies, and workforce transformation.
Infectious Diseases National Center
Because of its previous experience with communicable diseases (the Communicable Disease Centre was nearby), the hospital was designated as the designated hospital for SARS screening and treatment by the Ministry of Health in 2003. It was “effectively locked down” to contain the outbreak, which started with Esther Mok.
[4] A memorial plaque was placed in the hospital’s foyer in commemoration of the hospital’s physicians and healthcare workers who worked hard throughout the SARS outbreak, two of whom died of the illness, and Minister of Health Gan Kim Yong paid respect to the hospital’s employees.
The Communicable Disease Centre, which had been in existence for 121 years, stopped operations on December 13, 2018. All operations were transferred to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases, which Minister for Health Gan Kim Yong formally launched on September 7, 2019. The 330-bed facility, which boasts state-of-the-art technology, is built to handle an epidemic the magnitude of the SARS pandemic. Furthermore, the facility keeps track of patients in the building to avoid epidemics, and it features Singapore’s first high-level isolation unit for extremely infectious, even fatal illnesses like Ebola.
Specialty centers at the national level
The National Skin Centre is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the
The National Skin Centre is a professional dermatological clinic that treats patients on an outpatient basis. It sees about 1,000 patients every day. After taking over treatment of skin disorders from Middle Road Hospital, it began operations on November 1, 1988. It offers specialized dermatological services, educates medical students and postgraduates, conducts dermatology research, and provides continuing medical education to physicians and paramedics.
The National Institute of Neuroscience is a federally funded research organization that
The National Neuroscience Institute (NNI) is Singapore’s national and regional specialty facility for the management and treatment of neurological disorders, treating a wide variety of ailments affecting the brain, spine, nerves, and muscles. Its aim and objectives are based on three strengths: patient care, research, and education. The NNI offers neuroscience treatment not just in Singapore but across the region, with a broad variety of neurology, neurosurgery, and radiology services.
The Departments of Neurology and Neurosurgery from Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) were transferred to NNI in 1999 to build the clinical service foundations. A new Neuroradiology department has been established to offer specialized diagnostic imaging and interventional treatments for neurological illnesses. Today, NNI has a site in Outram that is co-located with SGH, but it also has a campus at Tan Tock Seng Hospital and offers specialty services to most other Singapore hospitals, unlike other SingHealth specialty centers.
