Speeches
Opening Remarks By Minister Of State For Defence Mr Desmond Choo At The SAFMC-SingHealth MOU Signing On 24 October 2025
24 October 2025
Professor Ng Wai Hoe, our group CEO of SingHealth, Brigadier-General (BG) Dr Lee Wei Ting, Chief of Medical Corp, ladies and gentlemen. Good afternoon and thank you for joining me today at this important Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Signing Ceremony between The SAF Medical Corp and SingHealth.
We are here today to sign an agreement, but what it really is about is a promise. It is a simple and unspoken promise that every nation makes to the men and women who step forward to defend it. It says, you have taken care of us. Let us take care of you. It says, you focus on the mission. We focus on you.
Think about those young people who put on the uniform for the first time. We ask them to be strong, to be ready to face any challenge. In return, we provide them and we owe them the absolute best we can possibly provide. Not just good care, not just adequate care but the very best that our country can provide. However, a quiet disconnect has existed. A wall that has stood between world class medical care inside our military camps and the world class medical care inside of public hospitals. Our people are one team, but our information has been in two places.
Now, this can mean a doctor does not have the full picture. It can mean duplicated tests and delayed treatments. In the field of medicine, every minute and every piece of information matters. That is not good enough, we can do better. And today, we are.
Today with this partnership, we are breaking down this wall. We are building a single, seamless system of care. I am proud to announce the SAF will be adopting the national Next Generation Electronic Medical Record (NGEMR) system. Now that sounds technical, it really means that from this point forward, we will have one health record for every person in uniform. A soldier's health story will no longer be broken into pieces. It will be a single story, accessible to their medic in the field and their specialist at the hospital. It means a doctor at any public healthcare institution like SingHealth will see what the SAF medical officer saw. They will know the treatments, the history, the allergies, all of it instantly. It means better care, safer care and faster care.
Our best medical minds should have the best possible information no matter where they are. This critical project will be jointly led by Synapxe and DSTA, leveraging their deep expertise in healthcare and defence technology, respectively. We are targeting for the system to be operational by the end of 2028. Today’s MOU formalises this partnership and more importantly, charts the way forward. It creates a framework for deeper partnership; set a stage for the NGEMR integration announced earlier and establishes a foundation for innovations we have yet to imagine.
None of this would be possible without the commitment to the formalising of this MOU. This agreement is about more than logistics. It is about a shared mission. It is about bringing the best of our civilian healthcare talents together with the dedicated professionals of our Medical Corps for a common cause: the health of our people.
I want to thank BG(Dr) Lee, Professor Ng and the incredible teams at The SAF Medical Corp and SingHealth. You are the ones turning this vision into reality. This is how we build a stronger, safer Singapore and most of all, this is how we honour the service of those who stand guard for us every single day. Thank you, and I wish everyone well and for success at this point.
Thank you very much.
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