zdravstvene

Zdravstvene is an adjective used in several South Slavic languages, notably Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian, and Slovenian, meaning health-related or pertaining to health care. It is typically employed to describe nouns in the fields of health services, health systems, and health policy. In practice, it appears in common expressions such as zdravstvene usluge (health services), zdravstvene ustanove (health institutions), and zdravstvene politike (health policies).

In these languages, zdravotvene is the feminine plural form of the adjective zdravotveni, or is the feminine plural form used in agreement with feminine plural nouns. For example, zdravstvene usluge and zdravstvene ustanove both use the feminine plural form because usluge and ustanove are feminine plural nouns. The masculine and neuter forms exist as zdravstveni (masc plural) and zdravstveno (neuter singular), with corresponding endings for other cases and numbers. This pattern is similar across the main South Slavic varieties and is also seen in Slovenian, where the base zdravot- combines with adjectival suffixes to denote health-related concepts.

Etymologically, zdravstvene derives from zdrav- meaning health, with the derivational suffix -stven- that forms adjectives, plus the appropriate plural ending. The term is common in official terminology, public signage, medical literature, and policy documents, where precise health-related qualifiers are required.

Overall, zdravstvene functions as a productive, neutral descriptor for anything connected to health care or health systems in the language communities that use it.