Raising the bar 

 

 

 

 

Since 1858, KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH) has embarked on an ongoing journey to transform care and advance medical innovation, research and education, evolving from humble beginnings as a general hospital to become Singapore’s tertiary referral centre for women and children today.

In 2018, as KKH commemorates 160 years of heritage in service the community and caring for women’s and children’s health, the hospital remains committed on their mission to deliver excellent, holistic and compassionate care for generations of women and children to come.

 
↑ 1958: Improving care for infants
Incubators are introduced at Kandang Kerbau Hospital (KK Hospital) in 1958, in a special nursery for babies born prematurely. The introduction of such technology helps to improve the survival rate for newborns and sick babies.
 


↑ 1963: Recognition by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
KK Hospital becomes the first accredited training institution for obstetrics and gynaecology (O&G) in Singapore. Pictured are the first O&G trainees (back row from left), Dr Sittampalam Shanmugaratnam, Dr Cheng Wei Chen and Dr Khew Khoon Shin, with (front row from left) Prof Tow Siang Hwa, Prof Charles Horner Greer Macafee and Prof John Leland McKelvey.
 


↑ 1965: Revolutionising newborn health screening
Prof Wong Hock Boon from KK Hospital and Dr WR Brown from the Hooper Foundation discover Glucose-6 Phosphate Dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency, which can cause severe jaundice in an infant. Today, G6PD deficiency screening is part of the newborn screening programme at all Singapore hospitals.
 


↑ 1966 to 1976: The largest maternity hospital in the world
KK Hospital sets the world record in 1966 for being the world’s largest maternity hospital with a record birth of 39,835 babies born that year – a record it subsequently holds for ten years.   

​About KKH

KKH is Singapore’s largest tertiary referral centre for Obstetrics, Gynaecology, Paediatrics and Neonatology.   Founded in 1858, the 160-year-old academic medical institution specialises in the management of high-risk conditions in women and children.   More than 500 specialists adopt a compassionate, multi-disciplinary and holistic approach to treatment, and harness medical innovations and technology to deliver the best medical care possible.

Accredited as an Academic Medical Centre, KKH is a major teaching hospital for all three medical schools in Singapore, Duke-NUS Medical School, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine.   The 830-bed hospital also runs the largest specialist training programme for Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Paediatrics in the country.   Both programmes are accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education International (ACGME-I), and are highly rated for the high quality of clinical teaching and the commitment to translational research.

 

This article was first published in KKH Special Delivery Volume 66, Issue 4