"180 years of compassion, excellence, resilience and innovation": Speech By President Tharman Shanmugaratnam At Tan Tock Seng Hospital’s 180th Founder’s Day Celebrations on 19 July 2024 At Capitol Theatre

Mr Ong Ye Kung, Minister for Health

Mr Tan Tee How, Chairman, National Healthcare Group

Prof Joe Sim, Group CEO, National Healthcare Group 

Dr Tang Kong Choong, CEO, Tan Tock Seng Hospital

Staff of Tan Tock Seng Hospital

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and gentlemen,

1. It is a real pleasure to join all of you in celebrating the 180^th anniversary of Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH). It is a remarkable milestone, highlighting the hospital’s longstanding commitment to compassion, excellence, resilience, and innovation.

2. TTSH has always been a People’s Hospital. It was started by the community and has stuck to its founding ethos of staying close to the community and caring for the community.

3. Indeed, the story of the hospital’s founding by Tan Tock Seng is inspiring because of what it says about community, and especially the social ethic of our early immigrants. It is worth remembering.

4. Tan Tock Seng did not arrive in Singapore with wealth. Born in Malacca, he came to Singapore as a young man in 1819, shortly after Stamford Raffles established a British trading outpost on the island. He found his way to earn a living, selling vegetables, fruit, and poultry from a roadside stall. Worked hard and saved enough to open a shop at Boat Quay. Then, with that same keen eye for opportunity, invested in land, which eventually made him one of the richest four early settlers¹. 

5. Why the hospital? As more immigrants made the long journey by ship, and lived in unsanitary conditions, the city became rife with diseases, including malaria, cholera, smallpox, tuberculosis, and leprosy. But as historians have recorded, the colonial government was, to put it politely, slow to recognise public health needs.  

6. Tan Tock Seng was moved by the suffering he saw and rallied other residents to support the cause of building a “Pauper Hospital.’ That became its name – the “Chinese Pauper Hospital”, at its original location at Pearl’s Hill, near Chinatown. But from the outset, Tan Tock Seng - who was a founding leader of the Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan or clan association – called on the hospital to serve the needs of not only the Chinese but the sick and poor of all races and nationalities. So it did. When the hospital shifted to Balestier Plain in 1860, it became known as ‘Rumah Miskin’ (House of the Poor).

7. Times have changed radically over the 180 years. Government in independent Singapore has been seized with meeting the needs of the public, and ensuring the healthcare system is ready for future needs.  Tan Tock Seng Hospital itself has been transformed into a premier healthcare institution, renowned in Singapore and beyond, and a teaching hospital as well, as CEO Dr Tang Kong Choong has just narrated.

8. Yet TTSH still regards itself as a People’s Hospital, still driven by that ethos of staying close to the community and caring for the community, through thick and thin. So it is fitting today that we honour its founder Mr Tan Tock Seng, and the other pioneers like him who felt it in their bones that when you succeed, it is your responsibility to support the community.

9. TTSH has helped Singaporeans weather all kinds of healthcare crises – from dealing with tuberculosis in the 1900s, to combating SARS in 2003, to most recently, battling the COVID-19 crisis. We were greatly advantaged to have the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) ready at TTSH just in time for the COVID-19 pandemic.   

10. But it is not just dealing with crises that has distinguished the hospital. Singapore’s first Geriatric Medicine Unit was set up in TTSH in 1989 and has since trained generations of geriatricians and helped set up geriatric specialty care in other hospitals. Today, its Institute of Geriatrics and Active Ageing plays a leading role in research and innovation in geriatric medicine.
    
    Building Communities of Care

11. The challenge of meeting the needs and hopes of an ageing population is now central to our healthcare system. It is a challenge that is in part the result of success. Singapore’s unusually positive health outcomes for its citizens has led to longer lives with each generation – in fact we now have one of the highest life expectancy rates in the world.

12. Our goal therefore is to both live as long as we can and to stay healthy as long as we can. And that means too, staying in the community for long as we can.

13. Healthier SG and Age Well SG, both launched last year and not a moment too soon, are the key to achieving our goal. They empower everyone to adopt healthier lifestyles at every age, and get ourselves screened regularly so that any problems are detected early. And they take a whole of society approach to maintaining good health, with our family doctors and community partners especially playing essential roles in building a healthcare system that is not only efficient and affordable, but never loses the human touch.

14. National Healthcare Group (NHG) has been advancing this approach in Central and North Singapore. It has to date built more than 90 Communities of Care (CoC) with over 100 Community Care Organisations (CCOs) and 600 primary care physicians supporting residents in their own neighbourhoods. The Population Health Campus that it recently set up will support this approach of integrating health and social care for residents.
    
    Health for Generations Fund

15. I am delighted in this connection to announce the launch of TTSH’s Health for Generations Fund.It is a well-timed initiative, to mobilise philanthropic resources in support of population health.

16. I understand it will support ground-up and pilot projects that can develop innovative approaches in care delivery and help upskill both the healthcare workforce and staff of community partners. The Fund can also supplement the Government’s funding for research and innovation work.

17. A good example is the ‘Health4All@Toa Payoh’ research project, which the new Fund will support. The project will enrol 4,000 Toa Payoh residents aged 35 to 70 in a longitudinal study over five years, aimed at understanding the psychosocial and environmental factors influencing health, and developing personalised solutions for improved health literacy, self-care, with community support.

18. Another supported study is the three-year long ‘Predict-2-Prevent’. It aims to find cost-effective ways to predict cardiovascular disease risk and allow intervention at an early stage.

19. I understand that the target is for the hospital’s Health for Generations Fund is $18 million over the next five years. It is an investment in collective wellbeing, that I encourage the philanthropic community to support.
    
    The Tan Tock Seng Awards – Emeritus Conferment

20. Finally, amid the awards given out tonight, I would like to make special mention of the four emeritus conferments. These are people who have dedicated their lives to healthcare and made a lasting impact to the hospital’s legacy. Professor Philip Choo, Professor Suresh Sahadevan, Professor Yeo Seng Beng and Ms Lim Siew Geok, you have set an inspiring example of professionalism and courage. You have constantly challenged the boundaries, to ensure better and more accessible care for our population. Congratulations.

21. Once again, thank you for being the People’s Hospital and creating a future that committed to the Health for Generations.