Speech by Minister for Health, Mr Gan Kim Yong, at the National Heart Centre Singapore New Building Topping Out Ceremony

Mr Peter Seah, Chairman, SingHealth
Professor Ivy Ng, Group CEO, SingHealth
Associate Professor Koh Tian Hai, Medical Director, National Heart Centre Singapore
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen

1. Good morning. It is a delight to join you today for the National Heart Centre Singapore New Building Topping Out Ceremony.

2. The National Heart Centre Singapore, NHCS, started its operations at the Mistri Wing in 1994. Since then, NHCS has grown from strength to strength to become the centre of excellence that it is today.

3. NHCS occupies a vital position in our healthcare landscape, providing highly specialised services in cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery. It is vital as heart disease is the second leading cause of death and hospitalisation in Singapore. Between 1994 and 2012, the number of specialist outpatient visits for cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery across our public institutions rose from 74,000 to 271,000. For NHCS specifically, the centre’s outpatient visits almost tripled, from 42,000 to 113,000. The ageing population will contribute to the growth in the overall demand for cardiology services in the coming years.

Enhancing Accessibility through Building Capacity

4. Under Healthcare 2020, over 4,000 new public hospital and community hospital beds will be added by 2020. But, besides hospital beds, we also need to address the growing demand for specialist services, such as in cardiac care. The NHCS’ new 12-storey building will allow for the expansion of the centre’s clinical services and seamless delivery of care within a single location.

5. The expansion in capacity is considerable. The new building will open with 38 specialist outpatient clinic rooms, more than double the current 18. It will also house three additional cardiac catheterisation labs, and three major operating theatres, doubling its current facility. There will also be a new short stay unit for patients scheduled for day procedures or surgeries such as coronary angiography and coronary angioplasty. This short stay unit will allow for more beds to be made available within the main hospital wards to cater to patients with more severe heart conditions.

6. Sufficient clinical manpower will also be required to meet the rising demand for cardiac care. Over the last decade, we have more than doubled the number of cardiologists and cardiothoracic surgeons in the public sector. We expect to add about 66 cardiologists and 10 cardiothoracic surgeons to the national pool over the next few years.

7. On its part, NHCS has also committed to help build up the next generation of professionals in cardiac care. Since 2008, NHCS has ramped up its pool of healthcare staff by 50 per cent, to its current staff strength of over 1,000. As an example of NHCS’s dedication to training, the centre partnered with Singapore Polytechnic to launch Asia’s first Diploma in Biomedical Science (Cardiac Technology) in order to provide training for cardiac technologists who assists doctors in the diagnosis and management of heart diseases. Since 2000, a total of about 170 cardiac technologists have been formally trained.

Importance of Community and Preventive Health Care

8. NHCS has also been playing a leading role in working with primary care providers to provide care for stable heart patients. It has partnered with SingHealth on the Delivery on Target (DOT) Programme, a model for community-based chronic disease management where general practitioners (GPs) work hand in hand with NHCS to keep the patients’ conditions stable and prevent hospitalisations. Since 2009, over 500 of its stable heart patients have been cared for by their GPs under this programme.

9. I hope to see more of such initiatives and collaborations so that Singaporeans can benefit from a more holistic provision of cardiac care. We have been actively engaging our GP colleagues and also developing new models of primary care such as the Family Medicine Clinics (FMCs). FMCs are team-based practices geared towards handling chronic cases, enabling the acute hospitals to have their stable patients cared for by the GPs in the community. Cardiac care is among the services which could be managed by the FMCs, and this is in line with our goal of bringing cardiac care into the community by tapping onto the private sector capacity to expand the reach of such services.

10. While we can ramp up specialised service facilities and manpower capabilities to deliver better and quality care for our patients, ultimately, the key to reducing heart disease is through preventive health care. Lifestyle factors such as physical inactivity, a high fat diet and smoking are all known risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. This calls for behaviour change on our part, to eat healthily and exercise regularly. We must make healthy choices for ourselves. After all, we want not only to have good healthcare, but also good health.

Closing Remarks

11. With the completion of the new NHCS building, I am confident that NHCS will bring patient care, training and education, and research to new levels of excellence.

12. Thank you.