Sunburn Treatment in Fuerteventura

Healthcare in Fuerteventura: what visitors and residents should know

How local care works in Fuerteventura and across Canary Islands, Spain — and where an online doctor fits alongside it.

Fuerteventura is served by the Servicio Canario de la Salud (SCS), the Canary Islands' regional health service, with Spanish the sole official language. State healthcare is run at regional level, so the rules you meet depend on where you are rather than on Spain as a whole. EU, EEA and Swiss visitors holding an EHIC (or a UK GHIC) can use public primary care and emergency departments on the same terms as residents, though you will normally be asked for the card plus photo ID at reception. Outside surgery hours, pharmacies operate a rota — the farmacia de guardia — and the duty pharmacy is posted in the window of every closed chemist. Fuerteventura is the most sparsely populated of the main Canary Islands and the closest to the African coast, and its health provision is genuinely thin outside the main towns — from the resort areas of Corralejo, Costa Calma and Jandía, the nearest fully equipped urgencias department can be a long drive, and anything complex means transfer off the island by air. That combination of low population density and long internal distances makes remote assessment more useful here than on the busier islands. Fuerteventura is Europe's principal windsurfing and kitesurfing destination, which gives it a distinct year-round pattern of water-sport injuries, and its constant trade winds disguise sun exposure in the same way they do on Lanzarote.

• World-class beaches and water sports
• Popular with UK and German tourists
• Year-round warm climate

Areas we cover around Fuerteventura and Canary Islands

An online consultation is not a substitute for emergency care. If you are in Fuerteventura and your symptoms are severe or life-threatening, call 112 or go to the nearest emergency department.