CGH celebrates our 10th anniversary this year. On 18 December 1996, we welcomed our first patients at the Specialist Clinics and Ward 26. This was followed rapidly by the opening of other wards, and subsequently the A&E Department on 15 February 1997, as the wards and services in Toa Payoh Hospital were gradually shut down.

CGH has grown significantly since we first started operations at Simei. In 1997, we had 14 clinical specialities. Today, we have 21 clinical specialities. Our admissions grew by 27,107 in 1997 to 41,049 in 2005. We are the preferred choice for specialised medical services. We have more than doubled our specialist clinic consultations from 136, 231 to 310,867 in 2005. From 107, 164 A&E attendances in 1997, we are now Singapore’s second busiest A&E department with 138,516 attendances.

CGH has been receiving regional and international awards for our programmes and our quality of care. We were the first hospital in the SingHealth cluster to receive our JCI accreditation on 11 June 2005. Our HomeCare Assist charity fund won the regional Asian Hospital Management Award (AHMA) for Most Outstanding Community Service Project in 2005. In 2004, CGH’s Interactive Patient Guide (IPG) also won the AHMA Most Outstanding Project in the IT or E-Commerce Category. Not forgetting our staff, CGH also won Family Friendly Firm Award in 2004.

At the 10th anniversary celebrations launch on 28 March 2006, Mr T K Udairam, CEO, CGH, revealed that the plan for the next 10 years is to “propel CGH to excel in our quality of care and service so that we will be recognised nationally and internationally for the care that we provide.”

“We will push our specialist service, such as gastroenterology, hepatobiliary surgery, cardiology, ENT and Urology to excel and achieve national and international recognition. Similarly, the Sports Medicine team will aim to be THE Sports Medicine Centre in Singapore and the region,” said Mr Udairam.