Services restored after hours-long disruption at public healthcare clusters; no indication of cyberattack: Health tech agency
The disruption, which affected patient-facing services such as appointment bookings through call centres, visitor registration and billing enquiries, lasted about nine hours.
Healthcare institutions across Singapore reported system disruptions on Oct 13, 2026, affecting services ranging from appointment bookings to patient registration and call centre operations. (Photo: CNA)
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SINGAPORE: Systems across Singapore's public healthcare institutions were fully restored on Tuesday (Oct 13) after a disruption lasting about nine hours. National health technology agency Synapxe said there was no indication that it was a cyber incident.
The disruption began at about 7.10am, when a technical issue affecting network connectivity disrupted some services across the public healthcare clusters.
Affected services were progressively back online from about 3pm, with all services restored by 4.37pm, Synapxe said in an update on Tuesday evening.
"There is currently no indication that this was a cyber incident," the agency said, adding that investigations into the technical issue were ongoing.
All three of Singapore's public healthcare clusters - NHG Health, the National University Health System (NUHS) and SingHealth - were affected.
The disruption affected patient-facing services including appointment bookings through call centres, visitor registration and billing enquiries.
Patients and visitors at some public healthcare institutions also experienced longer waiting times for certain services.
Synapxe said its teams worked closely with the public healthcare clusters to restore the affected services as quickly as possible.
"We apologise for the inconvenience caused and thank patients, visitors and healthcare staff for their patience and understanding," it added.
LONGER WAITS, PAYMENT SERVICES AFFECTED
NHG Health said in a Facebook post at about 9am that call centre lines for its institutions were temporarily unavailable. It later updated the post to say that a system disruption was affecting some services across its institutions.
NHG Health oversees four hospitals - Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, Woodlands Hospital and Yishun Community Hospital.
It also manages 10 polyclinics and institutions, including the Institute of Mental Health, National Skin Centre and National Centre for Infectious Diseases.
Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and Yishun Community Hospital warned patients that they could experience longer waiting times because of the disruption.
Woodlands Hospital said in an update at 1.30pm that its call centre lines had been restored.
NHG Health advised patients and members of the public to visit its websites or use the HealthHub and NHG Health apps for assistance.
CNA's calls to NHG Health's main contact centre hotline at 10am initially failed to connect.
Calls to Tan Tock Seng Hospital and Khoo Teck Puat Hospital also failed to connect, although a call to the Institute of Mental Health went through successfully.
At the National Skin Centre at about 11am, staff told CNA that its payment system was down.
Patients at its clinics and pharmacy were unable to pay for consultations or medication and were directed to make payment through the NHG Health app instead.
NHG Health told CNA on Tuesday evening after the disruption that its patient care was not compromised during the incident.
A spokesperson said clinical services, including emergency care, inpatient care, surgeries, medical tests and scans, continued with minimal disruption as NHG institutions immediately activated their established "downtime procedures".
"Medication delivery service also remained available through our pharmacies," they said.
According to the spokesperson, additional staff and volunteers stepped forward to support ground operations and assisted patients with registration and payment at the institutions, which eased the disruption's impact.
"Patients were also able to access selected services online via HealthHub, the NHG Health app, and AXS and could further refer to our websites for assistance and live chats," they said.
DISRUPTIONS AT NUHS, SINGHEALTH INSTITUTIONS
At National University Hospital (NUH), signs at the main building's pharmacy informed visitors of a service disruption and warned of potentially longer waiting times for medication collection.
A visitor who wanted to be known only as Mr Zol told CNA at about 2pm that he had been at NUH since 8am and was informed by hospital staff of the service disruption earlier in the day. He said he waited about 30 minutes to collect his medication.
At the pharmacy at NUH’s Kent Ridge Wing, a sign informed patients to expect a wait of around 60 minutes to collect medications. Two self-service kiosks outside the pharmacy were covered with signs that said maintenance is underway.
Expectant mother Iffah Kamilia Mohammed Zaiful told CNA that her visit to the Women’s Clinic at NUH was largely unaffected, as her appointment was at 2pm and the disruption appeared to have “more or less” subsided by then.
Ms Iffah, 27, said her doctor had called her earlier in the day to inform her of the disruption.
However, her appointment status on the National University Health System app was not updated even after her appointment had ended. The app continued to show that she was in the queue, with 17 patients ahead of her.
“I came after the downtime, but I heard it was very bad, that everything was being held up. I saw that the waiting time got longer because of the downtime,” she said.
Ms Iffah added that the television screens inside the clinic, which normally display queue numbers, were also not working.
Alexandra Hospital, which is also under NUHS, said earlier that a technical disruption affecting multiple systems could result in longer waiting times.
Institutions under the SingHealth cluster also reported disruptions.
Singapore General Hospital (SGH) and the National Heart Centre Singapore said a temporary system disruption was affecting several services, including outpatient appointment bookings and changes, visitor registration and billing enquiries.
SGH said its call centre remained open but was temporarily unable to process appointment bookings or changes.
Visitor registration could also take longer than usual, and patients were advised to allow additional time when visiting.
Meanwhile, Singapore's 24-hour national mental health helpline and textline service, mindline.sg, also experienced technical difficulties earlier on Tuesday.
In an update at noon, mindline.sg said its services were fully operational again.
Synapxe said investigations into the technical issue were ongoing.
Additional reporting by Nikki Yeo
