S'pore institutions, Philippine city ink healthcare pacts

Singapore's KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH) will leverage its own experience running a breast milk donation depot with 24-hour access to build up an existing breast milk bank for the city of Taguig in Manila.

- Anjali Raguraman

It is one of the initiatives in a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed on Aug 16 between Taguig City and SingHealth DukeNUS Maternal and Child Health Research Institute (MCHRI), led by KKH.

The agreement, which also involves philanthropic organisation Temasek Foundation, includes infrastructure planning and capacity building in Taguig's maternal and child health facilities, as well as nutrition research and the development of health programmes tailored to the needs of the city, which has a population of more than 1.2 million.

The MOU was one of two pacts signed that day, with the second being a partnership between Taguig City's government, private health technology firm CareSpan Asia and Temasek Foundation, which provided a $2.12 million injection of funds.

The pilot programme will see CareSpan providing the city government access to its advanced care platform, which is composed of an electronic medical records system and telemedicine capabilities.

This is expected to benefit 350,000 underserved citizens, and will streamline the filing of Philippine Health Insurance claims for patients in the city, among other things.