Disparities in Access to Healthcare Services for People with Disabilities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

People with disabilities worldwide suffer from limited access to healthcare services, which may increase the severity of disability or cause other disabilities. This study sheds light on the main reasons for the occurrence of disability in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), in addition to studying data on the availability of health services for people with disabilities. This was done by analyzing the availability of hospitals to provide the service, in addition to studying the data on obtaining various services over time and administrative regions. Based on data available on the Ministry of Health (MOH) website and the 2023 Disability Survey issued by the General Authority for Statistics, the adequacy of service availability was assessed in relation to disability rates in each region. The study followed the descriptive analytical approach by applying several statistical tests, where spatial analysis of health services was used in addition to studying the differences in the number of beneficiaries of those services using the Kruskal–Wallis test, in addition to Spearman’s correlation analysis to study the relationship between the number of hospitals and disability rates in each region. The analysis showed that 39.2% of people with disabilities have a disease as the cause of their disability. It also revealed a disparity in the distribution of health services in the Kingdom, as well as regional disparities in their availability, with health service coverage higher in areas such as Riyadh and Makkah compared to areas such as Al-Baha and Najran. It also revealed statistically significant differences ( P value < 0.05) in the use of some services, such as physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and prosthetics. Furthermore, the number of beneficiaries of health services increased by 70% between 2020 and 2023, while there were no significant differences in services such as speech and swallowing therapy. This indicates the need for a set of policies and initiatives to increase access and ensure fair distribution and efficiency of health services.