In 1982, the idea of a hospital to provide medical and nursing care to patients who did not need the services of an acute care hospital was mooted. Community hospitals as such would ease overcrowding in existing acute care hospitals.
Following that, the first community hospital in Singapore, Ang Mo Kio-Thye Hua Kwan Hospital, then known as Ang Mo Kio Community Hospital, was planned. It was officially opened on 17 December 1993, the second community hospital to be completed after St Andrew’s Community Hospital.
The management of the hospital was transferred from the government to two voluntary welfare organisations, Thye Hua Kwan and Chee Hoon Kog Moral Promotion Society, in 2002. The government’s intention was to get more welfare organisations involved in step-down healthcare. Today, the hospital continues to provide rehabilitative and recuperative care to residents staying in the north.