Ward 59, a C-class geriatric ward with 33 beds, moved across the street to the St Andrew's Community Hospital last Monday.

The two buildings are connected by a covered overhead linkway, making it possible for patients to be wheeled across on hospital beds.

CGH head T.K. Udairam said patients in Ward 59 are the more stable ones - those who are unlikely to have medical emergencies.

The lease arrangement is for three years.

Mr Udairam hopes that by then, a new 550-bed hospital in Yishun, scheduled to open in 2010, will ease his hospital's patient load.

While average occupancy at CGH last month was 86 per cent, there were days when the hospital was 98 per cent full.

When asked by The Straits Times at the weekend, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan said: 'Putting up temporary beds to meet such short- term gaps is a practical way out.'

It takes several years to build a new hospital, so 'matching supply with demand perfectly is not easy to achieve', he said.

He added that both the National University Hospital (NUH) and Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) had also set up temporary wards.

TTSH had moved its more stable patients to other hospitals several times to free up beds for critical cases.

This year, it set up three wards in the Communicable Diseases Centre 2 (CDC2), located within its grounds and which is also part of the National Healthcare Group.

NUH had moved some of its ambulatory services out to make room for more beds.

Mr Khaw said these additional beds could be removed or returned to their original use once the Yishun hospital opens.

Not only do these moves have the minister's support, they were also initiated by his office.

Mrs Yuen-Chiew Yew Mee, director of administration and operations at St Andrew's, said it had planned to open up the beds on the ninth floor this year.

But before that could happen, St Andrew's, together with other community hospitals, received a directive from the Health Ministry.

She said: 'MOH requested the acute-care hospitals to work with their respective community hospitals to increase the acute-care beds complement by 30 to 33 beds.'

Mr Khaw had often said he preferred public hospitals to have 'a slight undersupply' as an 'excessive oversupply' would be wasting taxpayers' money.

But he assured the public: 'This will not compromise medical care as all emergency patients are attended to immediately.'

Given the country's current population, there is a need for 100 more hospital beds each year. Because of this, another new hospital is in the works. The new 600-bed hospital, in the west, will be ready by 2015.

Meanwhile, Alexandra Hospital, originally slated to close when the Yishun hospital opens, will now continue to operate.

salma@sph.com.sg