The Institute of Mental Health (IMH), formerly known as Woodbridge Hospital, is a psychiatric hospital in Hougang, Singapore. IMH is the only tertiary hospital in Singapore that specialises in psychiatry. It has over 50 wards and 2010 beds for inpatients and seven specialist clinics for outpatients. Apart from its hospital-based services, IMH runs satellite clinics at different locations in Singapore and executes community mental healthcare programmes. History The earliest psychiatric facility in Singapore was a 30-bed building at the corner of Bras Basah Road and Bencoolen Street in 1841. It was then known as the Insane Hospital. It was renamed the Lunatic Asylum in 1861 and moved to a site near the old Kandang Kerbau Maternity Hospital. In 1887, the hospital relocated to the New Lunatic Asylum, with a capacity for 300 patients, built at College Road. In 1928, a 24-ward Mental Hospital was built along Yio Chu Kang Road. The New Lunatic Asylum and another psychiatric ward at Pasir Panjang were closed down and 1,030 patients were transferred to the Mental Hospital. Spread out over 80 hectares of land, the Mental Hospital was then the largest medical facility in Singapore providing custodial care for the mentally ill, with a capacity for 1,400 patients. In the 1920s, caring for the mentally ill was mainly custodial in nature. Patients were segregated from the community and were cared for by a handful of expatriate nurses with the help of health attendants who were not trained in nursing. After Singapore surrendered to the Japanese in 1942, about 700–800 seriously wounded civilian casualties were transferred from the General Hospital to the Mental Hospital, which was transformed into the Japanese Civilian and Military Hospital. The Japanese transferred about 500 'quieter' mental patients to St John's Island, where many starved to death. The remaining 1,000 were locked up and neglected, of which about 600 were transferred in 1944 to the Central Mental Hospital, Tanjung Rambutan, in Perak, Malaysia. Of these 600, after the war, only 329 returned. For a brief period from 1945 to 1947, the British Royal Air Force from the nearby Seletar Airfield requisitioned the hospital for use to treat the sick and wounded of Allied servicemen and Japanese POWs after the end of World War II. The female section was converted into the RAF Hospital while the male section became the Japanese Prisoners of War Hospital. The hospital was known as the 81