SINGAPORE - Kwong Wai Shiu Hospital (KWSH) opened its doors on Saturday (March 24) to about 800 people for its first community event since redevelopment works that have transformed it into the largest single-site nursing home in Singapore were completed.
The $96-million works, which included demolishing six buildings and renovating four others, took more than two years to complete. Hospital facilities were meanwhile housed in a temporary two-storey building on the compound.
The Serangoon Road premises now houses a 12-storey nursing home with more than 600 beds, a senior care centre, a traditional Chinese medicine centre, the Academy of Chinese Medicine Singapore and a heritage gallery.
KWSH, which aims to become an integrated hub for the elderly and the community in the Kallang-Whampoa precinct, will be opening more spaces in phases, it said.
The heritage gallery and community building, which will house a food court and retail shops, will officially open by the fourth quarter of 2018, it said.
An active ageing hub was opened in nearby McNair Road last year (2017), with another to come at St George's Lane by end-2019.
Speaking at its Community Care Day event on Saturday, KWSH chairman Patrick Lee said the nursing home building, which was launched last September, is on track to achieve full occupancy by the end of the year.
Plans for another new building to be completed by 2020 are under way, he added.
Besides a polyclinic, the new block will also house a 128-bed chronic sick unit that will specialise in nursing home care for residents with chronic illness, said Mr Lee.
A dialysis centre operated by Fresenius Medical Care will also be setting up in the premises for nursing home patients who require treatment.
The event also saw the hospital and Republic Polytechnic signing an agreement to develop training courses for staff of KWSH and other community care organisations.