Abstract
This paper reports the results of a survey carried out to evaluate existing prosthetic and orthotic facilities and programmes of education, training, and research and development in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. One hundred and twenty hospitals and medical rehabilitation centres were each circularised with a questionnaire requesting information that mainly concerned (i) types of prostheses/ orthoses, (ii) area of facility, (iii) personnel number and qualifications, and (iv) problems encountered and suggested solutions. The completed questionnaires revealed that in the final analysis of data there were only ten prosthetic/orthotic facilities.
The survey provided useful data on the personnel, equipment, and facilities available in each hospital or medical rehabilitation centre, together with details of the services to prospective referring clinicians. Two centres were found to provide high quality services by qualified personnel. There were no formal prosthetic/orthotic training programmes and there was only one prosthetic/orthotic research and development centre.
The respondents generally felt that there were three major problems: (i) lack of qualified personnel, (ii) lack of materials and components, and (iii) lack of continuing education and training programmes. It is hoped that presentation of these results will provide facts for both health-care providers and educators which may be used as a basis for development in this important area of healthcare.