Ho Ching defends S$52,188 rental bid for Tampines HDB clinic, says owners are not newbies

Ho Ching has spoken up in defence of the owners of a healthcare services firm that successfully placed a S$52,188 monthly rental bid on a Tampines West clinic.

The ground floor unit is located at Block 954C Tampines Street 96, a recently-completed BTO estate.

It will be run by i-Health Medical Holdings.

In a Jun. 5 Facebook post, Ho pointed out that the bidder is "not a newbie".

"These are folks who have experience and know the operating costs," she said.

She also pointed out that the tenderer would keep its consultation fees affordable at S$30 to S$35 — "comparable to the general GP rates".

"So from a patient’s perspective, the winning bidder dollar does not translate to higher consult costs," she said.

Long-term investment

Ho added that the bidder has evaluated this as a "long-term investment".

Being situated in a BTO estate, the clinic hopes to build up a clientele among the young families that have recently moved in.

As the estate is new, families may not already have "old family GPs" that they frequent, she said.

"With the ambition of serving their patients as a family doctor, and growing with the kids and parents, they could in fact be excellent partners for a healthier SG in preventive and chronic care," she added.

She also did some quick maths on this apparent investment.

The clinic previously told The Straits Times that it intends to break even at around 18 months, and plans to add a second doctor when volumes hit 70 to 90 patients per day.

At 100 patients a day, at S$33 per consult, this works out to S$3,300 of revenue per day, or about S$99,000 per month.

This excludes other services such as medication.

Furthermore, the high rent could mean that the clinic could find more ways to earn, such as by extending its opening hours.

They could even evolve into a 24/7 urgent care clinic, Ho theorised.

Previous responses

The S$52,188 bid first caught the attention of people online after it was shared on social media and forums.

Commenters online noted that rent alone would amount to S$1,740 per day. One healthcare practitioner, Hisham Badaruddin, called it an "obscene" amount to pay for rental.

For comparison, i-Health's three other heartland clinics cost between S$7,000 and S$10,000 a month in rental.

The next-highest bid for a ground-floor HDB retail unit to operate a clinic was at Block 235B Tengah Garden Walk, at S$40,088.

In response to criticism of their high bid, one of the co-owners of the firm, Andrew Chim, defended the decision.

On fears that their bid might cause rents to rise, Chim said that landlords might not be able to find tenants that can afford such an amount.

Health Minister Ong Ye Kung also weighed in on the matter, saying he was "dismayed" at the news.

He said that the high rent would essentially translate to higher costs of healthcare, negating the Ministry of Health's (MOH) efforts to keep primary healthcare affordable.

More importantly, higher rental bids "do not necessarily translate to the best healthcare that the community needs", he said.

He added that MOH and the Housing Development Board (HDB) have recently launched a new tender approach for GP clinics at Bartley Beacon.

Under the new approach, quality of care will account for 70 per cent of the tender evaluation.

Rent will account for just 30 per cent.

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