The Kingdom of Bahrain is located centrally on the southern
shores of the Arabian Gulf (between latitude 25 320 and 26 200
North and longitude 50 200 and 50 500 East) with an area of
742 km2 and a population of about 750,000 (Directorate of Statistics,
2006). There are over 400 healthcare premises in the Kingdom,
of which 33 facilities provide services to public free of charge,
while the remaining are private. There are 19 hospitals and the
remaining healthcare services consist of clinics, health centers
and medical support services. The sizes of the hospitals vary form
very large facilities with a wide range of medical services (e.g.
Salmaniya Medical Complex (SMC)) to small specialized facilities
(Ministry of Health, 2005).
In order to obtain a representative sample of healthcare facilities
in the Kingdom, 120 facilities were randomly selected including
the 19 hospitals. The chosen facilities represent a wide
spectrum of medical services such as government and private hospitals,
health centers and clinics, medical laboratories and pharmacies.
Details on types of healthcare facilities surveyed in study
along with the percentage of replies are presented in Table 1.