v0.31:Health care

v50.14 · v0.47 · v0.34 · v0.31.25 · v0.28 · v0.23 This article is about an older version of DF. More Info · V

Hospitals are a zone designated via the zone menu. Hospitals use any beds, tables, traction benches, and boxes/bags that are within these zones. You may also alter how much Template:L, Template:L, Template:Ls, Template:Les, Template:L for casts, Template:Ls, and Template:L hospitals use.

Doctors are dwarves assigned to any of the five medical labors; dressing wounds, diagnosis, surgery, setting bones, and suturing. All doctors in the fortress operate under the instruction of the Chief Medical Dwarf, one of the new appointed Template:Ls, and presumably only perform medicine on a dwarf after treatment has been prescribed by a diagnostician.

All beds within a hospital zone are automatically Hospital beds, where injured dwarves will go to recuperate. Tired healthy dwarves will occasionally camp there too if the hospital is close, even if they have their own bed.

In version 0.31.01, soap production is only possible by going through the manager screen.

Medical Skills

There are five doctor skills - how critical they are is unclear at the moment, but from Toady's pre-release comments we can assume they are moderately important to the healing process.

(And if you choose "Template:L", one of the 7 dwarves has Adequate (+2) Template:L in all 5 of these skills - which says something. "What?" is not perfectly clear either, but something.)

Skill (& Profession)

• Template:L (Wound Dresser)
• Template:L (Diagnostician)
• Template:L (Surgeon)
• Template:L (Bone Doctor)
• Template:L (Suturer)

Non-doctor labors

"Non"-doctors have 2 Template:Ls that contribute to healthcare:

• Feed Patients/Prisoners
• Recover Wounded

Note that these are not Template:Ls - they do not cause experience gain, but merely are activities that can be turned on/off for each dwarf. By default, all dwarfs start with these labors designated.

Setting up a Hospital

First, hit the 'i' key, and set up a hospital zone for the area you plan on having your hospital in. Next you will want to place enough beds in that zone to ensure you can keep dwarves who are unable to walk in the hospital. After this is done, build containers (b-h); bags and/or chests. These are essential since it is where hospital supplies are stashed. You will need several containers to store all items listen on the i-H menu like thread, cloth and buckets. Note that it's fine to store, say, a wooden crutch in a silk bag. From that menu you are also able to change the maximum amount of supplies in your hospital as well as seeing how many are currently stored in the hospital's chests. This may be a bit buggy as more cloth and thread are stored than you order. Could also be due to the new unit system. You will next want to build tables and a Traction Bench(see below) to allow for surgeries. Turn on the various healthcare labors for some doctor dwarves, and you should be pretty much set.

Healthcare will also require a source of water to clean wounds. While they are capable of taking a bucket and gathering it from the nearest source, note that swamp water from a murky pool will vastly increase your chance of infection (though Template:L can offset this to a degree.) It is unknown at the moment whether dwarves will intelligently choose a clean water source when both clean and dirty water are available.

Broken bones

Casts: Not to be confused with castes

A traction bench is used by a Template:L in a Template:L to immobilize a dwarf that has sustained complex or overlapping fractures.

It is constructed in the Template:L, and requires a Template:L, a Template:L, and a Template:L to construct.

Crutches are represented with the symbol

┬

.

A dwarf that needs to use a crutch/crutches will gain experience in the Crutch Walking skill, which Toady has stated will reduce the speed penalty for having to use crutches. Presumably, at legendary, they will move just as fast as without crutches. Testing remains to be seen whether using crutches causes any other penalties that this skill might reduce.

Plaster powder is produced at a kiln or magma kiln from gypsum, alabaster, selenite or satinspar and an empty bag by a dwarf with the furnace operator skill enabled. They can also be bought at embark for 3P per unit - each unit comes with a free Template:L.

See Also:

• Template:L
• Template:L

Bugs

^v0.31.02

• The game crashes when removing (X) a hospital zone that contains beds
• When a patient is diagnosed and treated, some wounds may heal before treatment occurs. If this happens, the surgery/suturing/etc jobs will never complete, and the patient will never be deemed healed. You now have a permanent invalid.
  • Unless of course you Template:L Template:L/Template:L the dwarf. This will cause a new diagnosis to be made and may free the invalid.
  • If you remove the bed the dwarf is resting in, he will notice that he is ok and leave the hospital.
• Surgery is often-times just plain broken. It won't work, and Template:Ling the dwarf won't help either.
• Gypsum powder is not stored at the hospital.
• Dwarves with healthcare jobs will take supplies from normal stockpiles instead of the hospital to do their work.
• The hospital often stores more materials than are assigned.
• The quality and value of a finished traction bench doesn't account for all of the inputs used to make it.
• Dwarves without a depot will steal hospital items and store them once a trade caravan arrives.