The Spatial Distribution of Public Dispensaries in the City of Jeddah (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia)

In Saudi Arabia, access to healthcare is considered as a human right for citizens and residents. Admittedly, there are spatial inequalities in access to care services between the inhabitants of cities and those of rural areas of the Kingdom. In the urban area of Jeddah, and like other Saudi urban areas, the distribution of healthcare equipment, and especially of basic state health centers (dispensaries), is very uneven. However, very few studies have been produced in this context. In this work, we have tried to map and analyze the spatial inequalities in the distribution of public dispensaries in Jeddah and the levels of access of inhabitants to these dispensaries. The main objectives of this study are as follows: Assess the population’s access to public dispensaries by crossing the population map with that of public dispensaries and by some other spatial analyzes such as the analysis of the supply of healthcare by neighborhood through public dispensaries, as well as the comparison of the situation of the various districts in terms of health care, through access to these dispensaries; finally, help decision-making by proposing alternatives to ensure fairness in access to medical care. This study proposes to assess levels of access to public dispensaries in Jeddah through the following steps: First, we presented the methodology adopted in this study as well as the study area. Next, we showed the spatial distribution of dispensaries and the population’s levels of access to healthcare. Finally, we presented some alternatives to help decision-makers to improve the conditions of accessibility to health facilities for the inhabitants. The obtained results show large spatial disparities in accessibility to healthcare and a local spatial relationship between accessibility and population concentration. This relationship results in an opposition between the North and the South of the city on the one hand, where we note that the level of accessibility is low with a low concentration of the population, and the central area on the other hand, which is characterized by a high population density and a relatively high level of accessibility.