Nam Hong Siang Theon Temple & Nam Hong Siang Theon Free Medical Centre
Located along Yishun Ring Road, this free medical centre has been serving the community since 2001. Run by the Nam Hong Welfare Service Society today, the centre was started by Nam Hong Siang Theon Temple, a temple which was established in the 1950s along Jalan Hikayat in Sembawang.
‘Siang theon’, literarily ‘charitable centres’ in Teochew, originated in Swatow, China. These organisations, are peculiar to the Teochews and are institutions that merge cultural and religious beliefs with a mission of charity. Devotees follow a combination of Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist teachings and they worship deities who are usually well-known for their benevolence, such as Song Da Feng, an eminent Song Dynasty monk.
Nam Hong Siang Theon Temple was started by the Teochew community in Sembawang. In those days, many migrants here were poor and could not afford funeral rites for their deceased. The temple helped their devotees out by providing free funeral services.
Due to urbanisation, the temple moved to Yishun in 1984. A columbarium and ancestral hall was built in and the sale of the niches helped to raise funds for the temple to do charitable acts to help the community. Nam Hong Siang Theon Free Medical Centre, situated across the road, was thus established in 2001 to provide free traditional Chinese medicinal treatment to the needy. Today, it serves more than 30,000 patients a year.