SINGAPORE – Not too long ago, Khoo Teck Puat Hospital (KTPH) had cared for patients on trolley beds lined in a three-by-three formation along the corridors of its emergency department.

Some patients had even been discharged from the trolley beds without being warded as it was bursting at the seams, being the only public hospital in the northern part of Singapore when it opened in 2010.

Its bed crunch situation has been resolved

since the opening of Woodlands Health (WH) in May 2024

Some 500 hospital beds – and counting – have been added to KTPH’s close to 800 beds to provide more capacity for the growing residential population in the northern part of Singapore.

“It was very messy, but now it is better... no more trolley beds,” said NHG Health’s group chief executive, Professor Joe Sim.

Speaking to The Straits Times on Sept 25, his first formal interview as NHG Health’s chief, Prof Sim has made better workload coordination across hospitals one of his key priorities since joining the group in 2024.

NHG Health is one of three public healthcare clusters here. The cluster’s three acute hospitals – KTPH, WH and Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) – care for the needs of Singapore’s residential population in the central and northern regions.

The other two clusters – SingHealth and the National University Health System (NUHS) – take care of residents in the eastern and western parts of Singapore respectively.

Since WH’s opening, the median waiting time in KTPH’s emergency department prior to ward admission has improved from an average of 6.9 hours in the first half of 2024 to an average of 2.4 hours in September. This is below the national average of 4.9 hours in 2024.