Thomson Medical Centre - History

History

Thomson Medical Centre was set up by gynaecologist Dr. Cheng Wei Chen in 1979. The hospital was one of the first in Singapore to introduce the home-like concept and personalised care for its patients. In 1982, it was the first private hospital in the country to introduce an obstetric ultrasound department to introduce obstetric ultrasound scanning. Thomson was also the first private hospital to set up an IVF clinic inside the premises. The year 1988 saw the hospital having Singapore's first IVF triplets which was delivered at the hospital. In the same year, Thomson Fertility Centre was set up to introduce IVF for couples who wanted children. The hospital set up a private cytogenetic laboratory on its premises in 1989. That same year, Thomson delivered Asia's first surviving IVF quadruplets, and was delivered by Dr. W.C. Cheng. The following year, Thomson produced its first frozen embryo baby. The hospital delivered the hospital's first baby by intracytoplasmic sperm injection in December 1995. The hospital was the first local IVF unit to perform the procedure jointly with overseas gynaecologists through an extension of simplified IVF techniques. It delivered babies by assisted hatching treatment and by Blastocyst cultured frozen embryos in 1999 and 2000 respectively. In 2000, the hospital made history again when it was one of the world's first fertility clinic to produce twins from frozen ova and frozen sperm. In 2001, the hospital opened the Thomson Lifestyle Centre for full body checkups, and housing other medical facilities, on its fourth floor.

The hospital was expanded in the late 1990s to include a four basement carpark using a car lift and an extension block to include clinics and other facilities. The upgrade also a saw a bigger lobby, shops, a café and more space. The hospital was listed on the SGX secondary board listing SESDAQ, now named Catalist, in 2005.

In 2010, TMC was acquired by investor Peter Lim and subsequently delisted in January 2011.