Viagra in Vigo? Start with a GP at your centro de saúde

For an English speaker in Vigo, the hardest part of sorting out an erection problem is often not the problem itself. It is walking into a centro de saúde, where the signs are in Galician and the doctor speaks Spanish, and explaining something you would rather not explain in any language.

This page walks through it in order: getting into the Galician health service, what the GP (your médico de familia) will ask and test, a few Spanish words that make the appointment easier, and what happens in Vigo if you are sent on to a specialist.

Step one: a health card and a GP

The public health service here is SERGAS, the Servizo Galego de Saúde. To use it you need a Galician health card (tarxeta sanitaria on Galician forms). According to SERGAS, you can apply online if you have a Spanish digital certificate or electronic DNI, or in person at the patient desk of a centro de saúde near your home. Either way, they ask for your certificado de empadronamiento, the proof that you are registered at your address with the town hall. When you apply you choose a GP from the list you are offered.

Not everyone qualifies for the public system. As a rule, people working here and paying Social Security contributions do, as do pensioners and EU nationals whose home country has passed their cover to Spain through an S1. An EHIC is meant for visitors and short stays, not for people who have settled here. If you go private instead, any Spanish pharmacy will dispense on a prescription written by a doctor practising in Spain.

Appointments with your GP can be booked on the SERGAS booking site, through the E-Saúde patient portal, in the Sergas Móbil app, by phone or at the desk.

What the GP will want to know

The guidelines of the European Association of Urology (EAU), the standard reference for urologists across Europe, put a detailed medical and sexual history first. Expect questions about when it began and whether it came on suddenly or gradually, whether you still wake up with erections, your sex drive and energy, your medicines, smoking and drinking, and whether you get breathless or tight-chested on exertion. You may also be handed a short questionnaire, usually the IIEF-5, which scores the problem so that any improvement can be measured later.

Then come a few checks: blood pressure and pulse, your weight or waist, and a brief examination of the genitals. The blood test the guidelines recommend is a fasting one, with glucose or HbA1c and cholesterol (unless you had them done in the past year) and total testosterone, taken early in the morning, between 7 and 10. A low testosterone result is repeated on another day before anyone draws conclusions. PSA, prolactin or LH are only added when something specific points that way.

It can feel like a lot of fuss for a prescription. The reason is that erection problems share their causes with heart disease and diabetes, and a GP who spots raised blood sugar early has done you a bigger favour than any tablet.

Spanish that helps in the consulting room

Doctors in public centres work in Spanish and Galician. Some speak English, but nobody guarantees it, and we don't keep lists of English-speaking doctors. These words cover most of the appointment:

Questions from people new to Vigo

If you are referred to a urologist

You cannot book a public specialist yourself; your GP makes the referral. Specialist care in the city is run by the Área Sanitaria de Vigo, whose urology department (Servizo de Uroloxía) belongs to the Complexo Hospitalario Universitario de Vigo, centred on the Hospital Álvaro Cunqueiro.

One local quirk catches newcomers out. SERGAS's own FAQ for patients (2024 edition) says that several Vigo health centres (Coia, Coruxo, Navia, López Mora, Colmeiro, Nicolás Peña and Rosalía-Beiramar), along with those in Cangas, Moaña, Baiona, Nigrán and Gondomar, send patients to the Hospital POVISA instead. Patients there can ask to switch hospital, usually during November, but any waiting time starts again from zero. Ask at your centro de saúde which hospital applies to you.

Paying for it, and finding a pharmacy

Having a health card does not make the tablets cheaper. Sildenafil, tadalafil, vardenafil and avanafil all sit outside public funding in BIFIMED, the Ministry of Health's reimbursement database, so the pharmacy charges the full price. Ask for an EFG generic if cost matters. A prescription from another EU country can be accepted in Spanish pharmacies if it has all the required details. Spanish pharmacies are not obliged to accept a UK prescription; some pharmacists may, at their discretion. With no prescription at all, no pharmacy in Vigo will sell you sildenafil.

At night and on public holidays, look for the farmacia de guardia. In Vigo the rota is organised by the pharmacists' college of the province, the Colegio Oficial de Farmacéuticos de Pontevedra, and published on its duty pharmacy page (in Spanish).

Products your GP may discuss

• Viagra Generic: plain sildenafil in three strengths (25, 50, 100 mg). Spanish product information starts most men on 50 mg and caps it at 100 mg.
• Cialis Generic: tadalafil as 5, 10 and 20 mg tablets. The 40 mg listing is above the licensed top dose.
• Cialis Original: branded tadalafil, sold here only as 20 mg, the top dose. Most men start on 10 mg.
• Levitra Generic: vardenafil 10 or 20 mg; not suitable if you have a long QT interval.

About ordering from this site: there is no shop or pharmacy of ours in Vigo, and we don't sell in person. Orders are posted or sent by courier, and the details are on the delivery conditions page. None of the checks described above happen when you order online, which is exactly why the GP visit matters.

Other cities: stress and anxiety in Bilbao, the prostate and daily tadalafil in Valladolid, weight, exercise and sleep in Gijón.

Sources: European Association of Urology guidelines on sexual and reproductive health (erectile dysfunction and hypogonadism chapters); Spanish product information for Viagra, Cialis and Levitra in CIMA (AEMPS); BIFIMED funding database, Ministry of Health; SERGAS patient FAQ, appointment services and Área Sanitaria de Vigo; Colegio Oficial de Farmacéuticos de Pontevedra. Information only; it does not replace a consultation. In Spain, prescription-only medicines may not be sold online, and customs can hold a parcel that contains them. We do not check prescriptions: talk to your doctor before you order.