Websites of Singapore public healthcare clusters restored after 5-hour internet access disruption

SINGAPORE:  Access to the websites of major public hospitals, polyclinics, and healthcare clusters in Singapore was restored around 4:30 pm following a five-hour disruption on Wednesday, after a crash that occurred at approximately 11:30 am.

On 1 November, Singapore’s healthcare sector was hit by a significant technical disruption. Public hospital and polyclinic websites went offline due to an “internet access disruption” that affected the entire public healthcare system.

Synapxe, the national health tech agency responsible for 46 public healthcare institutions, reported the outage in an afternoon Facebook post.

The agency informed the public that although websites, emails, and the NUHS contact center were down, clinical services and access to patient records remained operational.

The disruption affected a range of institutions, from the Singapore General Hospital to the National University Hospital and Tan Tock Seng Hospital, and even the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC), suggesting a widespread issue within the country’s healthcare digital infrastructure.

Despite the online outage, public hospital operations continued without directly impacting patient care, although online services were compromised until around 4:30 p.m.

Synapxe’s own website was down but returned to service around 2:30 p.m.

As the technical team worked on resolving the issue, Singapore Health Services (SingHealth), the National Healthcare Group, and the National University Health System—all major healthcare clusters—faced the challenge of inaccessible websites.

Singapore General Hospital (SGH) advised patients via Facebook to use the Health Buddy app for appointments and billing, requesting patience during the outage.

The Ministry of Health and HealthHub websites remained operational, and the websites of private hospitals in Singapore, such as Mount Elizabeth Novena and Raffles Medical Group, were seemingly unaffected by the disruption.

A SingHealth spokesperson, addressing the situation, said, “There is currently an Internet access disruption affecting all public healthcare clusters. Services that require Internet applications, like websites, are inaccessible. ”

“Patients can use the SingHealth Health Buddy app for appointments and billing services. Clinical services remain accessible and unaffected.”

“We are working with Synapxe, our healthcare IT partner, to resolve the issue, and we apologize for any inconvenience caused.”