The National University Hospital (NUH) is a tertiary referral hospital and academic medical centre in Singapore, located in Kent Ridge. It is a 1,160-bed tertiary hospital serving more than 670,000 outpatients and 49,000 inpatients and serves as a clinical training centre and research centre for the medical and dental faculties of the National University of Singapore (NUS). NUH is the flagship hospital of the National University Health System and the principal teaching hospital for the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. Its campus includes three national speciality centres, namely the National University Cancer Institute, Singapore (NCIS), the National University Heart Centre, Singapore (NUHCS) and the National University Centre for Oral Health, Singapore (NUCOHS). History NUH was originally known as the Kent Ridge Hospital according to its proposal as early as 1972, with a second plan drawn in 1975 by the then-University of Singapore Development Unit, when the hospital was planned at the Kent Ridge area, which actually costs $193 million to build, with an initial projection of 752 beds and a cost of $143 million. Construction began in 1980 and the entire project was completed at the end of 1984. NUH was the first privately run, government-owned hospital under the owner and managed by Temasek Holdings. NUH received its new staff on 15 January 1985 (on the same day itself, Kent Ridge Hospital was renamed to NUH). The hospital opened to the public and received its first patients on 24 June 1985, with the opening of two departments namely the Department of Medicine and the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. The hospital was then officially opened on 17 June 1986 by Goh Chok Tong, then First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence. Prior to its opening, clinical training for the students of NUS was carried out at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH), where the university's medical school was located until it moved to the new NUS campus at Kent Ridge in 1986. The hospital was originally owned by Temasek Holdings, a government investment holding company. It came under the Ministry of Health's Health Corporation of Singapore (HCS) in 1987. In 1990 the government decided to hand over the governance of the hospital to the National University of Singapore (NUS). This was in tune with the government's idea of making NUH the principal medical teaching institution of Singapore. In order to avoid duplication of services, the government decided to make