When I was young, whenever I am sick, I will go see a doctor at any of these places; Chung Hwa Free Clinic, Old Middle Road Hospital, Kandang Kerbau Hospital, Tan Tock Seng Hospital or the polyclinics.
Chung Hwa Free Clinic was the most visited. The clinic is located at 233 Serangoon Road which is right at the junction of Serangoon Road and Kinta Road. This is just outside our street entrance and like its name suggest, it's free!
In view of the poor state of Singapore's post-war health care facilities, there were such clinics that offered free TCM consultation that helps the needy and the poor and in serving the community. This Serangoon Road clinic was the first branch and was set up in 1961.
The clinic's ideal location right at the entrance of our street served us favorably. It became our family's clinic. We go there to consult the doctors for all possible ailments. Pain or no pain.
Prior to every consultation, you will need to go earlier before opening hours to get a queue number. With queue number, you will then wait for your turn and for your number to be called to have an audience with the Chinese sinseh. After the consultation with the doctor, you will again queue for your medicine. And then you will make a token contribution to the donation box.
You then go home to take your medication.
As Chinese medicine are always bitter. You normally gargle it down and then you popped a sweetener or a Chinese dried plum to normalize your taste buds.
As understand, bitter taste in Chinese medicine can clear heat from the body, especially from the heart. The tip of the tongue can be very red or burning, with excessive heat in body. So that's reason why mother always asked to see your tongue when you are sick.
Chung Hwa Clinic was mother's favorite playground for Chinese acupuncture. It must be real good techniques and good values of old sinseh as compared with today's practitioners that charged by the needles. She enjoyed it so much and I am sure she really miss out such treatments when we relocated. The clinic closed and relocated in the year 1986 after a 25 years presence in Serangoon Road.
Nonetheless, it was a very popular TCM clinic and sometimes, we have far away guests like grandma, uncles and aunties coming over for treatments. At times, that was the highlight of their visits to our home.
In that case, it goes like these: first we send in the vanguards with juniors like myself and younger brother going in for the queue numbers, then we go home to inform the troops. Our home will be the holding area where our guests will rest and wait out. The guests will then show face at the clinic for their scheduled appointments. These were our added value in servicing our guests and seniors.
Old Middle Road Hospital is another. During the 1970s, I remember my parents would refer to the hospital as a “skin hospital” – it was a centre for the treatment of skin diseases. Along with skin diseases, the hospital was notorious as the centre for treatment of venereal diseases (VD), which we now referred to commonly as STDs or sexually transmitted diseases.
So for adults, it is quite a sneaky place to be seen hanging around and you try to avoid going there. Unless you were a young teenager. So I went there to see a government doctor whenever I have problems like sores and skin rashes. During my visits, it's common to find many uncles and aunties, some of them have that very uneasy looks. Some came in shorts and pajamas. As for those uncles, they all looked very forlorn and restless. But at that time in the seventies, aids was still unheard of. But they still look sad. Maybe that's the time in the seventies where Vietnam was at war with America and you hear about in curable diseases like "The Vietnam Rose".
This hospital is also the place where it kick start my eagerness to learn to ride a bicycle. It began with father bringing me there for a consultation with the doctor. It was an afternoon appointment and it was afternoon break time for father. So he cycled me there with me riding pillion.
Like all consultation, there was the queue, and it went into overtime and father was getting late for his work reporting. This is when he went into chiding me for not knowing how to ride a bike. If I had known how, he could just go straight off to work and I can ride the bike home.
So with that, I was determine to learn cycling and I did it in quick time surprising even myself.
It was cycling for me everyday after that, I cycle everywhere I go. To the post office, running errands for mother, and on cycling outings with classmates.
One learning experience leads to another, I move on to learning motorbiking with my 4th brother, Poh Onn. That time he was serving his national service, and he loves biking. He had a big bike with crash bars installed like the traffic police. What an experience!. The hilarious thing with brother was that there was this day where he lost his bike to a hustler. Somebody came viewing and test drive as brother wanted to sell it off. This chap mount on it and drove off without even the courtesy to say, Thank You. Brother was stunned as he did not expect such to happen and he has no details of the intended buyer. Being inexperience, and selling his bike for the first time, he failed to take down his prospect identity and details. So he was conned right in front of his eyes. He was totally flabbergasted. As usual like in all theft cases, he made his police report but there was no recovery of his stolen bike. A costly lesson for him but I remembered we all had a good laugh.
That evening, we all witnessed brother perfecting his martial art skill, The Fist of Fury. He punched and burst one of his punching bag during his training practice. We were in awe!
That's how my younger brother and me became his first and second disciples of Sim Sum Loke Hup <禅山六合体育会> A Chinese martial art association that was officially opened by Mr Lee Kuan Yew in 1965. This association is still in existence today at Chinatown.