Formerly known as Kandang Kerbau Hospital, KK Women's and Children's Hospital (Abbreviation

Abbreviation

An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase. Usually, but not always, it consists of a letter or group of letters taken from the word or phrase...

: KKH; Chinese: 竹脚妇幼医院; ) is now the largest hospital

Hospital

A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....

 specialising in healthcare for women and children in Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

.

From its humble beginnings as a small general hospital in 1858 to a 30-bed maternity

Maternity

Maternity or motherhood is the social and legal acknowledgment of the parental relationship between a mother and her child.It is specially related with the protection of the baby and the mother within and after the childbirth.-See also:...

 hospital in 1924, KKH has grown into an 827-bed hospital providing obstetric and gynaecology

Gynaecology

Gynaecology or gynecology is the medical practice dealing with the health of the female reproductive system . Literally, outside medicine, it means "the science of women"...

, neonatology

Neonatology

Neonatology is a subspecialty of pediatrics that consists of the medical care of newborn infants, especially the ill or premature newborn infant. It is a hospital-based specialty, and is usually practiced in neonatal intensive care units...

 and paediatric services. Often affectionally referred to as "KK" amongst locals, it is the birthplace of a sizeable proportion of Singaporeans, delivering over half of total newborns in the country as early as 1938.

In 1966, the hospital entered the Guinness Book of Records for delivering the highest number of newborns within a single maternity facility for that year, and it continued to hold on to this record for a full decade, delivering 85% of the population year after year.

When the hospital moved to its present site, the old premises was marked as a historical site by the National Heritage Board

National Heritage Board (Singapore)

The National Heritage Board is a statutory board of the Singapore Government, under the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts ....

, a tribute to an institution which has been the birthplace of over 1.2 million Singaporean

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

s since its inception.

History

The hospital's name is Malay for buffalo shed ( kandang = shed / pen + kerbau = buffalo ), reflecting the area's link with buffalo rearing.

While the hospital started as one catering to health care for women, mainly for gynaecology and obstetrics, it had since expanded its role.

First, the paediatrics department was added for the care of the babies after delivery, but over the years it expanded into a full paediatric service, treating younger patients for all kinds of illnesses up to teenage. An offshoot, the neonatology service, was then added. Thus the expanded role of the hospital warranted a renaming to KK Women's and Children's Hospital.

Over the recent years, the scope of care has expanded even more to provide holistic care to women and children patients. It strives to become the "Healthcare Leader for Women and Children", which has become its slogan. New departments were added to the hospital. Paediatric surgery was first added, followed by others such as colorectal surgery, psychiatry and orthopaedics for women with illnesses requiring expertise in those areas.

As a result of a restructuring exercise in the local healthcare scene, the hospital became a member of the Singapore Health Services in 2000.
A TRADITION OF CARE

Colonial Days

1858

• Back in the colonial days, a General Hospital was built in the Kandang Kerbau District. It was segregated into two sections – one section for the Europeans (the Seaman’s Hospital) and the other for the locals (the Police Hospital).

1872

• In an attempt to control the spread of venereal disease, the female ward of the hospital was converted into a Lock Hospital, for compulsory screening and treatment of women with venereal diseases.

1888

• With a change in the law, compulsory screening and treatment were stopped. The facilities at the Lock Hospital were then used as a home for women and girls.

1905

• Female pauper patients from Tan Tock Seng Hospital were transferred to the General Hospital at Kandang Kerbau District. Subsequently, the hospital was also used to house female lepers and poor children. It eventually became the Pauper Hospital for Women and Children.

Kandang Kerbau Hospital

1924

• The Pauper Hospital for Women and Children was converted into a free maternity hospital – a hospital for the poor who could not afford to pay the medical fees. On 1 October 1924, Kandang Kerbau Hospital was opened with 30 beds and 12 children’s cots. The hospital was led by Professor J S English, Singapore’s first Professor of O&G. On that momentous day, five babies were born – three Malays, one Chinese and a Japanese. In those days, maternal and infant mortality rates were high. The hospital’s mission then was to provide good maternity care and midwifery training for medical students and pupil midwives to bring the mortality rates down.

1938

• Half of the 11,206 babies born in Singapore were delivered at KKH.

1942

• During World War II, KKH was converted into an Emergency General Hospital for the treatment of war casualties. It became known as Chua Byoin (Central Hospital) during the Japanese Occupation, and served as a General Hospital for Japanese civilians and the local community. The late Dr Benjamin Henry Sheares, who became Singapore’s Second President in 1971, was its Deputy Medical Superintendent then.

After World War II

1946

• After the war was over, KKH remained as the Civil General Hospital until 1 July 1946. It then resumed its function as the only O&G hospital serving the country.

1950

• In the post war years, births averaged over 1,000 a month (13,238 for the year) in the 240-bed hospital. The labour wards were so overcrowded that patients were delivered on trolley beds. To ease the shortage of beds, the length of stay of each patient was shortened from 10 – 12 days to three days.

1952

• The School of Midwifery was set up.

1954

• To cope with the high demand for beds, the Domiciliary Aftercare service was started. It looked after women who had been discharged 24 hours after confinement. The patients were carefully selected and if their homes were found suitable, they were brought home by ambulance. Midwives would visit them at home and report any abnormality to the hospital for follow-up action. Each day, about 20 – 30 women were discharged to be cared for by this service.

1955

• In August, the Domiciliary Delivery service was introduced. Women who had received antenatal care at the hospital were given the option of hospital delivery or home delivery, after assessment of the suitability of their homes for delivery. In September, the service saw the delivery of its first baby. A new extension to the building was also added. This saw an increase in beds, new operating theatres, an X-ray department and clinics for women and children.

1958

• To meet the needs of newborns, nurseries were equipped for specialised care for the sick and premature babies. Incubators were used for the first time in the premature baby nurseries. This helped to lower the infant mortality.

1961

• The bed capacity was increased to 438 beds.

1962

• All the hospital’s wards, two operating theatres for gynaecology, two theatres for obstetrics and two minor operating theatres were opened. The hospital was reorganised into three training units – University Unit, and Training Units A and B. Under this new structure, the three units concentrated on complicated cases and the training of doctors, while the Maternity Home Unit undertook the bulk of routine delivery.

1963

• As a result of the reorganisation, posts in the Training Units were recognised by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG).

1965

• A Blood Transfusion Service branch in the hospital was opened and a Cytology Unit was set up. Antenatal classes were also started by the Physiotherapy Department.

1966

• The number of deliveries continued to rise, reaching a record high of 39,835. This won KK Hospital a place in the Guinness Book of Records for having the largest number of births in a single maternity facility in that year – a record it held for ten years. More than 85% of all the births took place in KKH, where over 100 babies were delivered daily.

1968

• As the number of births started to decrease, the hospital’s Domiciliary Delivery and Domiciliary Aftercare services were no longer needed and stopped.

Modernising KK

Following the success of the nation’s family planning programmes in the 1970s, the total number of births at KKH fell below 30,000 for the first time.

1978

• In February, the School of Midwifery at KK Hospital was transferred to the School of Nursing at the Singapore General Hospital, and the school building demolished.

1985

• The hospital’s University Unit moved to the National University Hospital.

1990

• On 1 April 1990, KKH ended its 132-year history as a government hospital and embarked on a new chapter in its history as a restructured hospital. The O&G and Neonatology Departments from Toa Payoh and Alexandra Hospitals moved to KKH. With optimal consolidation of expertise and resources, three O&G departments were created to focus on subspecialty interests -- Maternal Fetal Medicine, Gynaecological Oncology & Urogynaecology, and Reproductive Medicine.

1992

• Construction on a new building for the new hospital began.

1995

• KKH launches Asia’s first (and the first outside the USA) O&G World Wide Web information service. It also becomes the first medical institution in Singapore to provide patient and public education in cyberspace.

1997

• As a natural extension of the services that KKH was providing for women and their newborns, paediatric services were introduced. The paediatric medical services from three national hospitals were centralised at KKH.

• KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital was born. Housed in its new premises at 100 Bukit Timah Road, the hospital included Singapore’s first and only purpose-built Children’s Hospital. The Children’s Hospital, which sees children from birth to 16 years old, is a tertiary referral centre for paediatric bone marrow transplants and open-heart surgeries. It is also a primary paediatric teaching hospital of the National University of Singapore, Faculty of Medicine.

1998

• The hospital's unique architectural design bags an award at the Singapore Architectural Design Awards for affording both patients and staff an excellent working environment departing from the traditional sterile environments of hospitals.

• The nation’s first Child Safety Centre opens. A programme of the hospital, it educates parents on making the home and road environments safer for children to reduce the incidence of childhood injuries.

KKH in the 21st Century

2000

• KKH is awarded the Family Friendly Firm Award by Singapore's Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS). This is for the many work-life initiatives put in place over the years to help staff achieve a balance between work and personal commitments.
• SPRING Singapore (previously the Productivity and Standards Board) awards KKH the coveted People Developer award. The award recognises the hospital's investment in a comprehensive system for developing its human capital.

2002

• The hospital wins the Family Friendly Firm Award for a second time.

2003

• The old Kandang Kerbau Hospital, birthplace of over 1.2 million Singaporeans, is now a historic site marked by the National Heritage Board. This is in recognition of the hospital's contribution to the provision of obstetrical and gynaecological care in Singapore since 1858. The hospital is also re-certified as a People Developer company by SPRING Singapore.

2004

• KKH won the Best Work-Life Balance Practices Award at the HRM Singapore Awards. On 20 October, the KK Alumni is established to encourage networking among former and present KKH staff. This was to generate ideas and initiatives in the areas of continuing medical education, training, technology and outreach to the community.

2005

• KKH achieved the Singapore Quality Class Award. It is conferred by SPRING Singapore to selected organisations, which have demonstrated commitment to business excellence, measured in the following dimensions – Leadership, Planning, Information, People, Process, Customers and Results.
• KKH achieved the prestigious Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation on 9 December 2005. This accreditation recognises the hospital’s performance in complying with the international healthcare quality standards set by JCI. It demonstrates the hospital's strong commitment to patient safety and continuous improvement on patient care processes and outcomes.

2006

• New services are introduced, including a Breast Centre, a Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) Centre, Mental Wellness, Sports Medicine, Adolescent Medicine, Women’s Ambulatory Geriatric Service, a Mature Couples’ Clinic, a Musculoskeletal Oncology Service, a Spine Service and a newborn screening service to detect errors in metabolism.
• KKH is the first hospital in Southeast Asia accredited to treat uterine fibroids using non-invasive treatment guided by the latest magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
• The KK Breast Centre is the first in the world to use the FDA-approved computed radiography technology for mammography combined with computer-aided detection. This detects cancers at the earliest stage, when cure is highly probable.

2007

• More new services are introduced. These include an expanded Children's Cancer Centre, Eye Centre, Pain Management Service, Psychosocial Trauma Support Service, Obstetric Ultrasound Teaching and Training Centre, and the Paediatric Simulation Training Centre.
• KKH receives certification for ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 in recognition of its pursuit to attain the best quality care and services that are consistent and continuously improved on.
• KKH is the first restructured hospital to be certified with the Pro-Family Business Mark.

2008

• KKH celebrates its 150th anniversary

2010

• The opening of the KK Hospital Simulation Centre enhances KKH’s medical training capabilities.

External links

• KK Women's and Children's Hospital

• KK Women's and Children's Hospital Facebook Page

• 3D KK Women's and Children's Hospital Guide