Spanish word of the week: sanidad

This week’s Spanish word of the week is la sanidad NOUN (public) health

Though ultimately coming from the same root as English ‘sanity’, sanidad has a very different meaning. It refers to different aspects of  health:

¿Qué ofrecemos para resolver problemas que le importan a la gente, como la educación, la sanidad, el desempleo? What can we offer to solve the problems that people care about, such as education, health, unemployment?

Sanidad is very often used to talk about issues of public health:

el Ministerio de sanidad the Health Ministry

Es lamentable el abandono que sufre la sanidad desde hace años. It’s dreadful how public health has been so neglected for years.

And very often the Ministry is referred to just by the single word Sanidad, with a capital letter:

Cada asociación designará dos personas encargadas de informar a Sanidad. Each association will designate two people whose responsibility is to inform the Ministry of Health.

The adjective relating to sanidad is sanitario, which is we look at in another Spanish Word of the Week.