ANG MO KIO CONSTITUENCY (Expansion of medical services)

Mr Yeo Toon Chia asked the Minister for Health, in view of the increasing population in the Housing and Development Board and surrounding estates in Ang Mo Kio, (a) if he will consider expanding the facilities provided in the Toa Payoh Hospital and Bright Hill Drive Clinic; and (b) when a polyclinic will be built in Ang Mo Kio Estate and what are the facilities that will be provided.

The Minister for Health (Dr Toh Chin Chye): Mr Speaker, Sir, it is not possible to expand facilities in Bright Hill Drive Clinic because of physical constraints. Construction of Ang Mo Kio Polyclinic will begin in the middle of 1979 and will be completed in early 1981. The Polyclinic will provide outpatient, curative, maternal, child health, family planning, dental and psychiatric services. There will also be facilities for X-ray and minor surgery.

As for Toa Payoh Hospital, I share with the Member for Ang Mo Kio the same concern. Toa Payoh Hospital was built in 1957, before the PAP came to power. In the first instance, it was built in the wrong place, on top of a hill and is inaccessible to patients. In the second place, at that time Toa Payoh housing estate and Ang Mo Kio housing estate were never conceived at all. So today we find that Toa Payoh Hospital which has less than 800 beds has got to serve two enormous housing estates plus the population from Sembawang.

I have visited Toa Payoh Hospital on a number of occasions and have suggested how we could improve or increase the facilities at Toa Payoh Hospital. But the terrain is such that we have to embark upon a major development scheme, if at all Toa Payoh Hospital is going to improve its facilities. As of this moment, I regret to say that we can do very little except to move the student nurses who are living there out of their quarters or to move the housemen who stay there and convert some of the buildings into wards. That can be done at short notice, But it is an unsatisfactory solution. However, we are trying to manage and initial steps have been taken to convert some of these quarters into wards.

However, may I also add that those who are living in the Ang Mo Kio area or Toa Payoh area need not necessarily go to Toa Payoh Hospital if it is overcrowded. They can have access to Tan Tock Seng Hospital which is close by. This, of course, touches on the point which the Member for Kim Seng raised in the debate on the estimates for my Ministry, that is, the problem of rezoning of patient catchment areas for the different hospitals.

As I pointed out, a hospital is a long-lived building. But Singapore is in a state of flux. A criticism has been made at my Ministry by a consultant - and I think it is a well made criticism - that all these donkey's years the Ministry has never had a long-term policy. This is a point which has been driven home to my administrators, and we are trying as best as we can to correct the errors of omission.

Nonetheless, Sir, Members in the House will realise that health care is very personal. In many countries, it is no longer pushed into the back of the budget of a government. Health care can be inflationary in character and, in fact, in the United States it is. It is a great contributor to the cost of living. Likewise, in other European countries health has become a political issue. We have done our best up to date. But I am afraid that policies of other Ministries sometimes overtake policies in the Ministry of Health. I have now made it a point that my administrators in the Ministry catch up with other Ministries which are responsible for urban renewal or resettlement of population, so that we will not be left high and dry.