Hospitals here must be designed with flexibility in mind so they can adapt to changing healthcare needs in future, said Health Minister Gan Kim Yong yesterday.

He was speaking to reporters during a tour of Outram Community Hospital (OCH), where he announced that a new integrated hospital would be opened next to Bedok North MRT station around 2030.

Asked whether the integrated model reflects how all hospitals here will look in the future, Mr Gan said such a model – which combines the functions of a general hospital and community hospital – is very important.

“We see many of the patients, when they are discharged, especially the older patients, require an extended period of rehab,” he noted.

“Instead of doing it within the hospital, which is very, very costly – and we also need to focus acute hospitals’ capacities on those with acute needs – this is better dealt with in a community hospital.”

He also emphasised that community hospitals play a key role in helping patients recover, and that the integrated model allows patients to be transferred between both types of hospitals smoothly.

However, Mr Gan added: “The model is evolving all the time because our healthcare needs are also evolving all the time.”

Noting that the new integrated hospital will take about 10 years from its design to be completed, and will likely last for another 40 years or so, Mr Gan said: “By the time you finish, it cannot be based on the needs that you have today.”

There are several other institutions across the island that have general and community hospitals located next to each other.

These include Tan Tock Seng Hospital and Ren Ci Hospital, Ng Teng Fong General Hospital and Jurong Community Hospital, and Singapore General Hospital (SGH) and OCH.

Mr Gan said that changing demographics and disease patterns will require a changing model of care. So it is important that hospitals are flexible and can adjust to these new care models where necessary, he added.

He said many new hospitals are already built with this flexibility in mind.

For instance, during the pandemic, OCH handed some of its wards to SGH to be run as acute wards, allowing SGH to free up capacity to care for Covid-19 patients.

“That has been the key consideration. You need that flexibility to allow us to adapt to changes in healthcare needs,” Mr Gan said.