"I had a little bit of pain in my head," he said. "Everything else was okay but my blood pressure was going up. They looked and found out there was a problem with my kidneys. It was a huge shock."
In January, the 40-year-old had to give up his job as a taxi driver to go on dialysis. For 35 minutes, four times a day, he is hooked up to a machine that does the work of his failing organs.
And in preparation for a possible transplant, Mr Singh this week had nine teeth removed, to minimise the risk of infection when - or if - the operation goes ahead.
His wife, Kamaljeet Kaur, and brother, Harbreet Singh, were in the process of being tested to see if they could be donors but, if neither of them were a match, Mr Singh told the Bay of Plenty Times he was worried about what the future held.
As different ethnicities have different tissue groups, finding a good match could prove difficult.
At the time of the 2006 Census, there were more than 106,000 Indian settlers living in New Zealand - making up just 2 per cent of the population.
Last year 38 New Zealanders donated organs, 36 following brain death and two after cardiac death.
"That's the difficult thing. You don't know how long your life will be," Mr Singh said.
He has two children - Amarjot Singh, 15, and Jaspreet Kaur, 12, - and said he hoped his life would be a long one.
Despite the odds stacked against him, Mr Singh's move to New Zealand could still prove to be his saving grace.
In India, due to illegal organ trading, organs can only be donated by immediate family.
"Only your brother, father, sister, wife or mother," Mr Singh explained.
Without a match, there was no other option.
However, in New Zealand, Mr Singh would go on a waiting list like any other New Zealander in need of a kidney transplant.
Kelvin Lynn, medical director of Kidney Health New Zealand, said the allocation process took into account how well-matched the kidney was with the recipient and how long the recipient had been waiting.
"With deceased donors, matching does have some impact on it. A good match will go before a poor match but there is some compensation built into it if you have been waiting a long time. You can move up the list as well," Mr Lynn said.
The match depended on blood group and tissue type.
The better the match, the less likely the kidney was to be rejected, but modern drugs could "get around" the issue of rejection when matching was moderate, Mr Lynn said.
However a live donor was always preferable. "There are people waiting who die on the list. Kidney disease is a serious illness. Having a transplant can increase the chance of living longer and make quality of life a lot better."