by Tng Ying Hui
Then-Minister for Communications Ong Teng Cheong believed otherwise, so he invited Bruno, who had left Singapore in 1976, back to make a case for the MRT. Thus began the Great MRT Debate. Upon arriving, Bruno submitted reports to the Cabinet, arguing that the MRT system, though costly to implement, would be a convenient, cost effective and reliable necessity for Singapore’s long-term development.
Recalling how he had fought for the MRT, Bruno said emphatically, “We did all the calculations and projections so I was sure that I was right!” The Harvard team, he said, had not considered the large volumes of passengers who would move across the island for work and school as the country grew. Due to this, increasing bus speeds would not be feasible and constructing more bus lanes would not make the transport system more efficient. The Harvard team also did not consider that passengers getting on and off buses would slow them down. It could not respond when quizzed about these issues, including how buses could travel faster as it had insisted, said Bruno. The exchanges between the pro-MRT and pro-Bus consultants culminated in a debate at the Istana where each side presented its case to Cabinet ministers, Bruno recalled. Then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew was present, said Bruno, and it seemed as though he agreed with the pro-MRT team. The debate between the opposing consultants was also brought to national television in November 1980. In 1982, the government announced that the MRT would be built.
In 1984, Bruno joined the MRT Corporation (MRTC)—known today as SMRT Corporation—as its manager for planning and computer services. By then, his wife, Maja, and two sons, had moved to Singapore. The couple had met and married in Zurich in 1962 before Bruno had left for his master’s degree in city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley.
At MRTC, Bruno pushed for the North-South line to pass through Orchard Road. The Orchard station is where it is now because he was able to convince his colleagues that the high volume of people visiting the shopping belt could justify the exorbitant building costs. At the same time, Bruno advocated having distance-based fares for the MRT. The price of MRT travel was pegged between that of an air-conditioned and non-air conditioned bus travelling the same distance. By starting from a lower fare compared to the air-con buses, passengers would be drawn to taking the MRT, said Bruno. When travelling further, passengers paid more, but Bruno argued that this would not deter them because they were paying for speed and comfort.
The first station at Toa Payoh opened in 1987 and more than 120,000 commuters turned up on the first day to experience the new mode of public transport. By 1990, 67 kilometres of MRT tracks had been built: the North-South Line from Yishun to Marina Bay, and the East-West Line from Pasir Ris to Boon Lay. The MRT—more reliable and comfortable than the buses—proved popular with the public. In 1990, Bruno went to transit services company Transit Link to set up an integrated ticketing system, which aimed to provide a common fare payment system on both bus and MRT services. The result of that was the birth of an everyday item—the stored value transport card. When Bruno left Transit Link in 1992, he went on to set up his eponymous firm and advised other countries on their transport ticketing systems.
Bruno retired at the age of 77 in 2013. He continues to give feedback to the press on fine-tuning Singapore’s public transport system. He has suggested publishing bus timetables to offer commuters certainty and the ability to plan their travel and has openly voiced his concerns on the maintenance of the MRT system and argued for an independent public transport regulator, a role which the Land Transport Authority currently plays. In view of a series of train delays and breakdowns since 2011, he has called for an independent assessment of the state of the rail network. After 50 years of rapid growth, he said it is time for Singapore to focus on a more “people-oriented approach” to land use and transport planning—one that ensures a friendly environment for pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users.
Bruno was awarded the Public Administration Medal (Silver) in 1988 for his contributions to the country’s public transport system.
References
“Expert Named to Study MRT Findings,” The Straits Times, September, 5 1980.
“Singapore has Become a City for Cars, Not People,” National University of Singapore Society 24 (2015), http://www.nuss.org.sg/publication/1431319874_commentary2015_FINAL.pdf
Wilbur Smith and Associates, Republic of Singapore Mass Transit Phase II (Washington D.C.: United Nations Development Program, World Bank, 1977).
Interview with Bruno Wildermuth in April 2015.
Bruno Wildermuth
Switzerland, b.1936
SCIENCE AND MEDICINE
Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran
Sri Lanka
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Dr Sydney Brenner
South Africa
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Prof Edward W. Holmes
United States Of America
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Sir David Lane
United Kingdom
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Dr Edison Liu
Hong Kong
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Sir George Radda
Hungary
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Prof S. S. Ratnam
Sri Lanka
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Prof Jackie Y. Ying
Taiwan
Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran
Doctor to Mums and Babies
Sri Lanka-born Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran has devoted his medical career to enhancing the quality of life for mothers and newborns, coming up with techniques that have saved lives the world over. Several of his medical innovations came about during the 15 years that he lived and worked in Singapore.
A decision to move to Singapore in 1982 started Professor Sabaratnam Arulkumaran on a journey that led to him becoming an internationally-feted clinician and researcher in the field of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (O&G). In 2009, Prof Arul, as he is often called, was conferred a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to medicine and health care. He is currently professor emeritus of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at St George’s, University of London. He was a former president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and has published close to 30 books as an author and editor, among
other accomplishments.
As a child, Prof Arul was taught by his father that the most important virtue a person can have is kindness. This led to him going into medicine. He completed his medical degree at the University of Ceylon in 1972 and did training stints at hospitals in Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom, before applying for a lecturer's position in the O&G department at the NUS.
While lecturing at the university, Prof Arul worked in the wards at Kandang Kerbau Hospital (now KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, KKH). He was a protégé of Professor S. S. Ratnam, who was already a well-known obstetrician at that time. While Prof Arul's posting opened doors to an area he had set his heart on, he recalled having to adjust to an overwhelming workload. Kandang Kerbau Hospital, which handled around 20,000 births each year in the 1980s, was then organised into two departments—one linked to the university and the other, a government department. Prof Arul’s university unit managed about 10,000 births a year, when typically, other hospitals would manage between 3,000 and 4,000 births a year. This required Prof Arul to put in 10 to 12 hours a day at work.
Fortunately, the medical team was well-organised and competent, said Prof Arul. The members included Professor P. C. Wong, a gynaecologist who is now a senior consultant with the National University Hospital (NUH). The group also had strong support from the university and the government, he added, and all this was a big help. In 1985, the NUH opened an O&G department, helping to reduce the KKH’s delivery load. Prof Arul decided to plant roots here as Singapore was “safe and research funds were abundant”, he said.
Prof Arul went on to graduate with a PhD from NUS and in 1990 became associate professor at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at NUH. In 1995, he was made the head of NUH’s O&G department. One of his earliest achievements was developing a method,
using an anti-contraction medicine, tocolytic, to prevent babies from being deprived of oxygen (known medically as foetus asphyxiation) during labour. He went on to work on a sound stimulus that detects if the child in the womb is healthy. Both techniques are now used widely in hospitals throughout the world.
In 2004, Prof Arul and Dr Chong Yap Seng, now a senior consultant at NUH’s O&G department, came up with a cheap way to prevent excess bleeding after delivery. To do this, they used misoprostol, a drug for treating peptic ulcers, and worked out the most appropriate dosage of the tablet that was needed to get a woman's uterus to contract.
It also does not need to be kept in the fridge, unlike the conventional treatment, oxytocin, making it more convenient for use in developing countries, where basic facilities are lacking. The preliminary findings have been endorsed by the World Health Organisation. It is one of three methods to stop bleeding during childbirth.
Prof Arul was still at NUH when he popularised the second method. This involves inserting a fluid-filled balloon into the uterus. It puts pressure on the blood vessels there, encouraging clotting. In developing countries, a condom can be used instead of the balloon.
The third technique, a compression suture, was devised after he left Singapore for the UK. The procedure can be carried out by anyone who can deliver a baby by ceasarean section, and circumvents the common but complicated method of removing the uterus. Prof Arul’s innovations have helped to reduce maternal mortality rates worldwide, especially in developing countries.
But Prof Arul added that, as is expected in the medical profession, not all medical treatments or innovations turn out successful. His religious beliefs—he is a Hindu—have helped him tide through emotional moments with a measure of equanimity. He would take time to recollect his moves and put on paper a plan to avoid repeating the same mistake. Such retrospection is something he expects of his students too. His one piece of advice to young doctors, during his tenure as chief of NUH’s O&G department, was to always have some “R&R” at the end of their day, that is, to review and reflect on their day’s work.
Prof Arul left Singapore in 1997 at the age of 49, when he was at the peak of his career here. The father of three said he did so for family reasons. In an interview in the August 2009 issue of the Singapore Medical Association’s (SMA) monthly magazine, he explained that by 1997, several members of his family had already made United Kingdom their home. At his new role at the University of Nottingham, he helped start its new medical school and was also appointed one of five non-executive directors of a trust which ran two hospitals. The task of the non-executive directors was to merge the two hospitals into one, plan a new hospital building and start new research laboratories and programmes.
In 2005, Prof Arul worked to turn around the operations of the maternity department at London’s Northwick Park Hospital, which had, for a short period, experienced an unexpected increase in maternal deaths. There, he developed a “maternity dashboard”, which has since won him accolades. This dashboard tracks clinical activity in the maternity ward, while monitoring the clinical performance of the O&G department.
Prof Arul became a British citizen in 2002. He still comes to Singapore regularly to lecture at events organised by the Asia and Oceania Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and to attend medical panel studies at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School.
He also has fond memories of his colleagues at NUS, citing in the SMA magazine interview his research collaboration with colleagues and looking after staff, their relatives and friends. Singapore, he said, gave him a strong foundation for his career in the UK. He said, “In some way, I am who I am because
of Singapore.”
References
Allison Lim, “New Head set to take O & G dept further,” The Straits Times, November 26, 1995.
Chang Ai-Lien, “Making Childbirth Safer for Women,” The Straits Times, October 30, 2010, http://newshub.nus.edu.sg/news/1010/PDF/MAKING-st-30oct-pA22.pdf
“Interview with Professor Sir Arulkumaran,” Singapore Medical Association 41 (2009),
http://news.sma.org.sg/4108/Feature.pdf
K Singh, EL Yong, PC Wong, “The Teaching of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Singapore from 1905 to the Present,” Annals of the Academy of Medicine 34 (2000)
http://www.annals.edu.sg/pdf/34volno6200506/v34n6p121c.pdf
K Tan and S Cher, “Progress Obstetrics from 19th to 21st Centuries: Perspectives from KK Hospital, Singapore – the Former World’s Largest Maternity Hospital,” The Internet Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics 2 (2003).
Kumudini Hettiarachchi, “Lankan Knight who Saves Mothers From Death,” The Sunday Times, November 23, 2014.
Maternal health ISFiT 2011 (3) speech by Professor Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran, YouTube video, 7:50, posted by ISFiTube’s channel, Jun 15, 2011.
“Queen’s birthday honours list: Knights,” June 13, 2009, The Guardian,
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/jun/13/queens-birthday-honours-knights
Sara Pek, “S. Shan Ratnam,” Singapore Infopedia, accessed December 2014,
http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_1405_2008-12-30.html
Interview with Prof Sabaratnam Arulkumaran over the phone in December 2014.
Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran
Sri Lanka, b.1948
Dr Sydney Brenner
Scientific Pioneer, Research Mentor
South Africa-born Nobel Laureate Sydney Brenner has played a pivotal role in Singapore’s quest to become a regional hub for biotechnology research and development. With his trademark candour and dry wit, he describes the Singaporean hesitation to ask questions or challenge authority as a “disease” and said that the laboratory he founded gives free rein to young Singaporean scientists to pursue projects borne out of novel ideas and personal motivation.
In the early 1980s, Singapore had no biotechnology industry as it did not have the expertise for it. But by 2003, Singapore had already built a $500 million agency that oversaw all biomedical sciences research. In 2014, biomedical sciences manufacturing output was $21.5 billion, a more than three-fold increase from $6 billion in 2000.
South Africa-born Dr Sydney Brenner, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest biologists of the 20th century, was instrumental in this transformation. Dr Brenner identified messenger RNA, which sends genetic information in cells, and made other breakthroughs that unravelled the mysteries of the genetic code. He developed C. Elegans, a type of roundworm, as the model organism for research into complex organisms. This led to discoveries in organ development, and programmed cell death, which serve fundamental functions in tissue development. Dr Brenner was one of the Nobel Laureates for Physiology or Medicine in 2002.
Dr Brenner made his scientific breakthroughs at the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory for Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge, the United Kingdom. He went on to establish the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, California, in 1996 and in 2000, moved to The Salk Institute in La Jolla, California where his studies resulted in new ways of analysing gene sequences and a new understanding of the evolution of vertebrates.
Dr Brenner’s relationship with Singapore has spanned three decades. In 1984, Dr Brenner came here for a meeting with the Science Council, which oversaw the development of science and technology policies, at the request of Deputy Prime Minister Dr Goh Keng Swee who was keen on biotechnology research. During that trip, he proposed that the government set up the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) to develop research capabilities and groom talented postgraduates. Singapore then lacked a talent pool in the biomedical field. Dr Brenner, who said he was “genuinely interested in helping a young country motivated to go in the right direction”, drew a rough plan of the graduate institute, which would be hosted by the NUS, on half a sheet of A4-sized paper and presented this to Dr Goh and Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. Dr Goh was enthusiastic but Lee questioned the value of such an expensive endeavour, adding, “We are still primarily a country of te
chnicians.” Dr Brenner replied, “Prime Minister, if you don’t do something like this then you will remain a nation of technicians.”
The IMCB was launched in 1985 and opened its building in 1987. Dr Brenner was the first chairman of the IMCB’s advisory board. He cited distinguished biochemist and molecular researcher Chris Y. H. Tan—the IMCB’s first executive director—and renowned researchers Chua Nam Hai and Louis Lim, as being instrumental in attracting talent to the institute and building up its international profile through industry collaboration. The IMCB also focused on training Singaporean PhDs. At the IMCB, Dr Brenner had started his own lab—he and his group of researchers focused on genomics, in particular, the fugu (pufferfish) genome project. They mapped the genes of the pufferfish, which has a repertoire of genes similar to humans, and by sequencing the compact genome of the pufferfish, they were able to aid researchers in interpreting the human DNA sequence. Dr Brenner also mentored young scientists and post-doctoral students and delivered public lectures to bring scientific research to a wider audience.
In June 2000, the government launched a Biomedical Sciences Initiative, which aimed to develop the sector as a growth area for the economy. It was formulated by top civil servant Philip Yeo and three renowned medical doctors. Their efforts were directed at creating a strong base in research and development (R&D), developing manpower and intellectual capital, attracting corporations to support R&D and anchoring biomedical sciences manufacturing in Singapore. In January 2002, the A*STAR was created to replace the National Science and Technology Board, which had been in charge of implementing the country’s long-term R&D plans. Dr Brenner became an adviser to A*STAR and was, for several years, chairman of the Biomedical Research Council.