line most accessible thomson-east coast - singhealth · logists and a heart surgeon – who will...
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By LINETTE LAI
IN PAPUA New Guinea (PNG), local hospitals do nothave the expertise or equipment to do heart surgery.
Instead, all such operations are carried out by ateam of Australian surgeons who fly in once a year.
But the National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS)has been working with doctors there to set up thecountry’s first cardiac unit, which could be ready bynext year. It has trained three doctors – two cardio-logists and a heart surgeon – who will form the coreof the new unit.
“To develop heart surgery, you really need a team– cardiologists, nurses, surgeons and so on,” saidAdjunct Associate Professor Chua Yeow Leng, a sen-ior consultant with the Singapore centre’s cardiotho-racic surgery department.
For the past six years, NHCS doctors have beenflying to PNG on humanitarian missions. “But wecannot go over to do surgery for them all the time,”Prof Chua said. “We wanted to get them a team thatthey can call their own.”
One of the doctors he has been training is DrNoah Tapaua, who has been with the centre for twoyears. Dr Noah, who spoke at the first InternationalConference on Humanitarian Medical Missions atthe Academia building on the Singapore General Hos-pital (SGH) campus last week, will be flying back inJanuary to establish PNG’s first cardiac surgeryteam. The new centre will start off by doing“straightforward” surgery, such as fixing holes in
the heart for children born with the defect.The country has a population of 7.3 million. Each
year, 60 patients are shortlisted to undergo heartsurgery by the Australian team, out of more than athousand in total. “The rest of the patients will justcontinue on medications,” Dr Noah said. “A few,who can afford it, fly out (to get surgery).”
He hopes to perform between 50 and 100 opera-
tions a year when he returns to PNG.To help kick-start the new team, SGH is also help-
ing to train nurses and perfusionists – specialistswho operate heart-lung machines during surgery.
“We need to train the whole team,” Prof Chuasaid. “You cannot train one person, and expect himto make a difference.”
By ADRIAN LIM
WHEN completed in 2024, theThomson-East Coast Line (TEL)will have an average of four en-trances at every MRT station, of-fering the most accessibilityamong all the rail lines.
The North-South, East-Westand North-East lines have an aver-
age of three entrances at every sta-tion, while the Circle Line (CCL)and Downtown Line (DTL) havetwo entrances per station.
Of TEL’s 31 stations, Mayflow-er in Ang Mo Kio will be the mostaccessible with seven entrances.
Despite the increase in the aver-age number of access points, Sin-gapore is still far behind HongKong’s MTR system, which has
557 entrances for 84 stations, orsix access points per station.
The Land Transport Authority(LTA) said designing stations withmore entrances is part of its ef-forts to “improve first and lastmile connectivity”.
Some of the entrances on theEast Coast stretch will be connect-ed to longer underpasses of up to400m, it added.
Mr Erwin Seah, 34, a computerengineer, said he is looking for-ward to the Marine Parade Sta-tion, which will be near the under-pass to East Coast Park.
“The only way to get to EastCoast Park now is by bus. It willbe good for pak tor (dating) ses-sions with my wife,” he said.
Commuters who want to knowmore about the new stations canvisit the LTA exhibition whichopened at Parkway Parade yester-day. The exhibition, which charts
the milestones of Singapore’s railsystem, will move on to ThomsonPlaza, Bedok Mall, Katong 112 andpublic libraries.
Visitors will be able to see mod-els of rail infrastructure and whatengineers use to build tunnels.The roadshow, which ends inMay, will also feature anecdotes
from LTA’s veteran engineers.LTA’s senior group director of
rail, Mr Sim Wee Meng, said thatwith different rail lines at variedstages of construction, Singaporeis now being studied by othercountries.
“From engineering design to...testing and commissioning... weoffer the full suite for them tosee,” said Mr Sim, an LTA veteranof 31 years.
The exhibition also charts thechallenges engineers faced inbuilding Singapore’s first raillines.
LTA’s deputy group director ofrail for the CCL and DTL, Mr NgKee Nam, recalls feeling giddy inthe early 1980s when compressedair tunnelling was used to buildtunnels.
“They warded me for oneweek... I couldn’t work in the tun-nel anymore and ended up at thestation, which wasn’t bad too,”he said.
Thomson-East CoastLine most accessible
Dr Noah Tapaua (centre) with perfusionists Alex Tipso (left) and Norman Kambo outside the operating theatres of theNational Heart Centre Singapore. They are being trained for Papua New Guinea’s first cardiac unit. ST PHOTO: NEO XIAOBIN
Visit the LTA’s roadshows and get an idea of what it takes to build those MRTtunnels as well as learn about rail expansion plans. ST PHOTO: AZIZ HUSSIN
S’pore centre opensits heart to PNG
It has average of 4 entrances at eachstation, against 2 to 3 for other lines
W E D N E S D A Y , N O V E M B E R 5 , 2 0 1 4 HHOOMMEE B3