The Canossian sisters, a Roman Catholic order, who did not know about the previous history of hospice in Singapore, decided to set aside 16 beds for terminally ill patients at their home for the aged, St Joseph's Home. The group of volunteers that grew from this work later went to the Singapore Cancer Society to start a hospice home care service, originally entirely manned by volunteers. This later gave rise to the Hospice Care Association or HCA, the first organisation to be formed for the purpose of providing Hospice Care in Singapore. The HCA built up its hospice home care service from a largely volunteer-manned service in 1989 to become the largest hospice service in the country presently run by a team of professional staff In 1994, it acquired its own building and started a hospice day care service.
Assisi Home and Hospice where I work, is also run by a Roman Catholic order, the Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood. It started as a chronic sick home in 1969, but began to take hospice patients in 1988. Later in 1992, the nuns vacated their convent and converted it into the 39-bedded home and hospice it is today. Now, it has 32 hospice beds, a hospice home care service serving 185 patients in 1996, and a hospice day care service that cared for 47 patients in 1996.
In 1994, the first purpose-built, in-patient hospice, Dover Park Hospice, was opened, at a centrally located site provided by the government which it shared with the Hospice Care Association. This was a milestone in the development of hospice in Singapore. Not only had the government reversed its original attitude to hospice as an undesirable institution in Singapore, it had provided the land and 90% of the building costs and 50% of the operating costs of Dover Park Hospice. This was achieved because of the track record of the care given by the existing four hospice organisations, and the realisation by the government that hospice provided cost-effective and high-quality care for the dying. Dover Park Hospice is a charity run by a volunteer welfare organisation, and the chairman of its Management Board, Dr Seet Ai Mee, who is a former government minister, recognised the potential of hospice and persuaded the government to give it the support it currently has. Now in Singapore, the government will provide 90% of development costs of future hospices and 50% of the operating costs of inpatient hospice care. Recently, hospice home care began also to receive 50% operating costs from the government. It is hoped that as hospice day
