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v0.31:Health care

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Revision as of 21:03, 6 April 2010 by Mikaka (talk | contribs) (Just fixing up some links and TOC location.)
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This article is about an older version of DF.
This is about healthcare in the new version, for the skill see Health care (skill).

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.

In the new version of Dwarf Fortress, 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.

As of 0.31.01, soap production is bugged, so you will have to make do without. - It is possible to make soap through the manager screen.

Medical Skills

There are five doctor skills - how critical they are is unclear atm, 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)

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

The first thing you will want to do when carving out your hospital is ensure you have enough beds to keep dwarves unable to walk. Next, hit the 'i' key, and set up a hospital zone in the area you plan on having your hospital in. After this is done, build containers (b-h), bags and/or chests. These are essential since it is where hospital supplies are stashed. Without ample containers, your hospital will not have the supplies it needs, leading to an inability to perform most operations. From the 'i' menu for the zone, you are 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. 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: