Animal HospitalWiki

Conditions

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Patient conditions — visible symptoms, correct treatment, what goes wrong if you miss it.

Conditions Aren't Anomalies

Patient conditions are the legitimate reasons a patient is in the hospital — Flu, Bleeding, Stomach Ache, Dehydration, etc. They have a one-to-one item match: every condition has exactly one correct treatment item. Once you've accepted a patient through the Anomaly check at intake, this catalogue is the reference for what to actually treat them with.

Misdiagnosis costs you. Wrong treatments either fail outright (item simply doesn't apply) or — in a few cases — actively harm the patient.

The Item ↔ Condition Map

| Condition | Treatment Item | Severity | |---|---|---| | Bleeding | Bandages | Easy | | Flu | Cough Syrup | Easy | | Dried Eyes | Eye Drops | Easy | | Stomach Ache | Herbs | Easy | | Dehydration | IV Bag | Easy | | Low Sugar | Maple Syrup | Easy | | Headache | Medicine | Easy | | Bruises | Medkit | Easy | | Rashes | Ointment | Easy | | High Fever | Cooling Gel | Moderate |

Some condition entries note higher difficulty because the diagnosis is ambiguous (multiple symptoms overlap with another condition), not because the treatment item is hard to find.

Misdiagnosis Costs You Sanity

For most conditions, the wrong treatment fails silently — the item doesn't apply and the patient stays in their current state. Dehydration is the exception: incorrect treatment is documented as fatal in our existing entry (rapid health decline → Patient Expired). If you're unsure, double-check the symptom before reaching for IV Bag.

Some Items Have Off-Label Uses

Three treatment items pull double duty as combat or event tools:

  • Maple Syrup treats Low Sugar AND placates the Bed Monster.
  • Eye Drops treats Dried Eyes AND pacifies Mass of Eyes.
  • Ointment treats Rashes AND is the manual fallback for the Patient on Fire event when no Fire Extinguisher is in reach.

When loading inventory, weigh single-use treatment value against off-label combat value before deciding what to leave behind.

FAQ

How do I know which condition a patient has? Conditions present visually (rash patches, coughing animation, prone collapse) AND through dialogue cues. Most diagnoses are clear from a single round of observation; trickier ones need to be cross-referenced with the symptom list on each detail page.

What if a patient has two conditions at once? Documented patients typically present one primary condition. Combo presentations aren't widely confirmed in community guides.

Where do treatment items live? Most treatment items spawn outside the relevant patient rooms, free of charge — see items for the per-item location notes.

Do conditions change between shifts? Difficulty scales with shift number, but the condition set itself is stable. Shift 4+ adds more ambiguous presentations (similar symptoms across different conditions) rather than new diseases.