SAF Military Medicine Institute

SAF Military Medicine Institute (MMI) in the new DSO (Kent Ridge) Building aims to provide specialised health care and medical grading for servicemen. Billed as the Centre of Excellence in clinical military medicine, MMI promises professional treatment and quality service to sustain the fighting strength of the SAF.

The conceptualisation of MMI started in 1995, with the Ministry of Health (MOH) and MINDEF seeking closer collaboration. The idea was to locate this facility together with a hospital to maximise expertise and resources.

The SAF also recognised the need to provide secondary level medical care tailored to military vocation.

"It was conceptualised this way, but obviously it couldn't start big at that time, so we started on a smaller scale at different locations," recalled Deputy Commander MMI, LTC (Dr) Fan Swee Weng.

In the early days, the various clinics and services were operated from three different locations: Loewen Road Camp, Depot Road Camp and Alexandra Hospital.

Last December, all these clinics and offices came under one roof at the DSO (Kent Ridge) Building - with the exception of in-patient care for psychiatric patients, which remains at Alexandra Hospital.

"It was a great opportunity to maximise all our resources and put together all these capabilities to harness and maximise what each of these services can provide," LTC (Dr) Fan (left) enthused.

MMI, a sub-unit of Headquarters, SAF Medical Corps (HQMC), is responsible for the provision of pre-deployment medical services, musculo skeletal injury care, psychological, trauma and stress support, visual care and performance enhancement, as well as cardio-pulmonary assessment.