October 3, 2025
SINGAPORE – More than five decades ago, a woman’s curiosity about why her sibling had been stillborn led her to enrol in Kandang Kerbau Hospital’s school of midwifery.
Today, having worked at the hospital for about 53 years, Ms Saleha Kamsan, 72, a staff midwife at what is now KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, said the satisfaction of seeing families leave the hospital with their newborn children kept her in the profession.
Ms Saleha was among the hospital’s long-time staff who recounted their memories of the former Kandang Kerbau Hospital in Hampshire Road to the media on Oct 1 – the day three blocks of the old hospital were collectively gazetted as Singapore’s 76th national monument.
The hospital moved to its present site in Kampong Java in 1997.
When Ms Saleha – the second of six siblings – was a Secondary 4 student, her mother, after experiencing excessive bleeding, was admitted to the hospital to deliver what would have been her seventh child.
This was an anomaly, said Ms Saleha, as she and her five siblings were born at home.
While training to be a midwife from 1972 to 1975, Ms Saleha came to understand that her sixth sibling was lost because her mother’s placenta was in an unnatural position.
She found the answer to what she had been looking for, but Ms Saleha learnt a lot more than that.
“We learnt everything. Post-natal care and what to do during deliveries, breastfeeding, baby nutrition – there were a lot of things,” she said of her experience at the midwifery school, which was Singapore’s first such school when it opened in 1952.
Another alumna of the school is Ms Too Ah Kim, 82, a senior midwife at the hospital and the oldest midwife still working there.
She recalled helping to deliver 13 babies over a 10-hour night shift as a midwife trainee from 1964 to 1966, which she said was especially satisfying because it helped her quickly chalk up the 100 births she needed to qualify as a midwife.
“It was a very busy night and sometimes when patients arrived, we had no beds,” she said. “If there were no beds, we’d roll out a waterproof mat on the floor and the patient would deliver there.”
It was in 1966 that a record 39,835 babies were born in the hospital, or on average, one every 13 minutes and 11 seconds.
Former staff described the hospital being like a war zone during its busiest periods, with emergency beds placed along corridors and mothers delivering on theatre trolleys and mattresses on the floor.
Among the babies delivered in the hospital’s corridors in 1961 was Professor Tan Kok Hian, 63, who said it was probably a combination of two factors – no available delivery suites as well as the speed with which he arrived.
(From left) Ms Saleha Kamsan, Professor Tan Kok Hian and Ms Too Ah Kim recounting their memories on the grounds of the former Kandang Kerbau Hospital. PHOTO: THE STRAITS TIMES
Prof Tan returned to the hospital as a fourth-year medical student in 1983 and later full time in 1989, when he started specialising in obstetrics and gynaecology.
It was in the hospital’s Block 1 – which is part of the monument and where he was born – that Prof Tan completed his first caesarean section surgery independently.
“Basically, my whole life has been spent in KK to a certain extent,” said Prof Tan.
As the president of the Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society of Singapore from 2001 to 2003, he pushed for the old hospital’s heritage to be recognised, not just for its sociocultural value but also because of its contributions to antenatal care and healthcare research.
While he made some headway – the old hospital was recognised by the National Heritage Board as a historic site in 2003, a status which accords no legal protection from demolition – Prof Tan noted that it has been years since, and news of the forthcoming gazette came as a pleasant surprise.
The monument status means mothers like Madam Zubaidah Samsudin, 61, who was born in the hospital and gave birth to her two sons there in 1993 and 1995, may one day be able to take future family members to the site to recount personal stories.
Madam Zubaidah Samsudin delivered her two sons at the old Kandang Kerbau Hospital and later returned to the site to work as a Land Transport Authority officer. PHOTO: THE STRAITS TIMES
In December 1997, Madam Zubaidah returned to the site of the former hospital – which had by then relocated – as a Land Transport Authority officer, setting up office in Block 3, where she had been admitted.
“If I have a chance to have grandchildren, I will be able to relate to them stories of this hospital. This is where grandma delivered your father, and then I worked here. There’s sentimental value.”