A government committee is preparing recommendations to provide the people suffering from autism with proper healthcare. Once completed, the recommendations will be sent to King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. An informed source told Alyaum Arabic daily that the committee discussed various issue related to a large number of Saudis suffering from autism currently getting treatment in Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain because of the lack of specialized centers in the Kingdom. Most centers in the Kingdom which deal with such cases focus on the educational aspects of autistic patients but allegedly don't offer high-quality services, the source added. The committee plans to send the recommendations to include autistic patients in the insurance policy so that they can benefit from the facilities like speech therapy, psychological and occupational treatments, the source explained. “There are no official statistics in the Kingdom about the number of autistic patients but some reports indicated a 10 percent increase in the number of patients in the Kingdom,” the source said. “There is one autistic patient in every 100 patients. According to global estimates, there are 187,075 autistic patients in the Kingdom,” the source said. There are only two autistic societies in the Kingdom and some blame the Ministry of Social Affairs and want it to build more specialized centers which can rehabilitate autistic patients. According to the statistics provided by Princess Samirah, President of Autistic Society, there are some 250,000 Saudi autistic patients and 8400 of them get the treatment from abroad while a large number of them are over fifteen years old and have not received any training so far.
