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The executive chairman of Raffles Medical Group Ltd, Loo Choon Yong, is now worth $1.1 billion.

Bloomberg reported that the healthcare provider's net income more than doubled in the first half of 2021 and its shares climbed 104 per cent from a low in March 2020.

The report added that Raffles Medical recorded a profit of S$38.8 million after taxes for the first half of this year.

This is an increase of 138 per cent from the same period last year. The healthcare group also recorded a revenue of S$343.8 million, a 42 per cent increase.

Raffles Medical at the forefront of the pandemic

The medical doctor said in a video interview that as Singapore battles with the pandemic, the company has to help the country out.

“When the country is facing a challenge like this, we have to help out,” he said.

He added that “although we’re private, we’re part of the health-care system,” Bloomberg reported.

To date, Raffles Medical Group is operating 15 vaccination centres islandwide.

The healthcare group is also assisting with air-border screening, pre-event testing, and cruise passengers pre-departure swab operations, Bloomberg added.

At the height of the pandemic in 2020, the group expanded its workforce by 1,300 to support swabbing operations at isolation facilities like Expo and Changi Exhibition Centre.

They also supported operations in foreign workers' dormitories by sending more than 50 doctors, nurses and healthcare staff to test its residents over five months.

Who is Loo Choon Yong?

The recent billionaire hailed from humble beginnings.

In an interview with Mothership.sg, Loo mentioned that growing up, his father had to work three jobs to support him and his family.

Initially, he told his father he would want to be a nuclear scientist but his father asked him to take up medicine instead and he did not mind doing so.

After serving a stint in government hospitals, Loo and his friend Alfred Loh set up Raffles Medical in 1976.

Currently, Raffles Medical Group has more than 100 multi-disciplinary clinics across five countries and 14 cities in Asia.

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Top image via Raffles Medical Group/Facebook and Mothership video courtesy of Raffles Medical Group