Health and cleaning

Treat the injured

Pause after a fight and inspect the Health tab. Bleeding, pain, infection, illness and hunger affect whether someone can move and work. A person who is downed may need rescue rather than a movement order.

Keep a reachable bed available and enable Doctor work on a capable colonist. Use Rescue on a downed friendly person. Doctors tend patients and feed those who cannot get their own food. Keep medicine accessible; herbal medicine comes from healroot and medkits can be crafted after the relevant research.

Prioritize serious bleeding and infection. Patients need rest, food and safe temperatures as well as treatment. A sleeping patient does not automatically move out of a freezing or overheating bedroom.

Open Health after a fight. This injured colonist has untended wounds and is bleeding: arrange doctoring and a safe place to recover. View full screenshot

Prevent infection

Tending quality and the dirt around the patient affect infection risk. Keep the treatment room clean and inspect wounds regularly. An infection can become fatal without treatment; a tended, resting patient has a better chance of recovery.

Visitors can also be rescued or treated. Prisoners need suitable prison beds and their own care. Livestock are tended by handlers, using Animals skill, rather than by human doctors.

Keep the colony clean

Enable Clean work. Colonists clean near the colony rather than roaming the whole map. Blood, dirt, vomit and ash reduce room cleanliness and beauty. Outdoor filth fades, especially in rain; indoor filth needs cleaning.

Use the Cleanliness view to find dirty rooms. Butchering leaves blood, bleeding people leave trails, and people walking from bare ground onto floors track dirt inside. Put the butcher table away from food preparation and lay paths between busy buildings.

Turn on Cleanliness to find the problem area. The dirty kitchen needs cleaning before more food preparation; keep blood-producing work away from it. View full screenshot

Food poisoning

Dirty kitchens increase the risk in cooked food. The risk stays with the food when it is carried, merged or packed into a backpack. Cleaning the kitchen does not change meals that were already prepared.

Poisoned colonists work more slowly, feel worse and vomit, creating more cleaning work. Provide rest and food while they recover, and improve the kitchen before cooking more.

Diagnose a collapse

Look at Health and Needs before assuming an injury is the only cause. Severe starvation, hypothermia and heatstroke can also incapacitate a colonist. Deal with the cause as well as moving them to bed.