ABSTRACT
This chapter charts the protracted struggle to build a modern infectious diseases hospital in Singapore. We first traced the difficulties that plagued the early Infectious Diseases Hospital-cum-Quarantine Camp at Balestier Road, widely known as a slaughterhouse. This was replaced by a new Moulmein Road Hospital in 1913, renamed the Middleton Hospital in 1920 and the Communicable Disease Centre (CDC) in 1985. In 2019, the CDC made way for the present-day National Centre for Infectious Diseases. The history of these facilities reveals an underlying tension in developing an infectious diseases hospital: it would be expensive to build and maintain, while only demonstrating its value during a pandemic.
