SNS 24 Line - 808242424
From the SNS 24 Counter – visit or contact a branch near you.
The Health Center
The Health Center is the basic unit of the SNS for serving and providing healthcare to the population. Family doctors/general practitioners, public health doctors (health delegates) and nurses work there, providing essential, preventive or curative healthcare. In addition to administrative staff, other professionals also work in some Health Centers such as social service technicians, oral hygienists, environmental health technicians, nutritionists and psychologists.
And who can apply?
Registering with the Health Center is a registration process that allows anyone with an “utente” user number to access healthcare at their local health center. It's a way to ensure you have access to healthcare whenever you need it. By being registered, you can have access to family medicine, nursing care, nutrition, psychology, oral health and social assistance. Additionally, registration allows your doctor to access important information about your medical history, which can be crucial in an emergency.
Once you have your user number, follow these steps to register with the Health Center:
To register at the Health Center, you will need an SNS user number (“utente”), alongside your identification number. You can obtain one through the National Health Service if you do not have a user number.
The Government approved two structuring legislative documents for the modernization of the National Health Service. It generalizes the Local Health Units (ULS), creating 31 new ULS, which integrate hospitals and health centers under a single management. The country will now be entirely covered by 39 ULS.
Please note that the documents you need and the registration process may vary depending on your local Health Centre and your legal status in Portugal. If you have any questions, please contact your local Health Centre for guidance.
Like many other countries in Europe and around the world, Portugal is experiencing a shortage of doctors. As such, the SNS is understaffed at the local level and the wait for a family doctor can sometimes be quite long. Each doctor has a limited number of patients they can take on and there is often a waitlist in some municipalities that can take well over a year to get the first appointment.
While this doesn’t affect emergencies or other urgent situations, it can be challenging to get convenient checkups or other doctor’s appointments when first moving to a new municipality in Portugal. When not assigned to a family doctor at the local Centro de Saúde, you can only get a minimum level of services such as pregnancy consultations, urgent family planning, acute situations, renewal of temporary disability certificates, chronic prescription renewal, and vaccinations. All other services will only be available after being assigned a family doctor. In the meantime, some people may resort to paying extra at a private hospital or clinic.
Find answers to common questions about this service.
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