Health

Ambulances respond to stabilize injured Sims before transporting them to a Clinic or Hospital for treatment. Injured Sims will die if an ambulance is late or never responds.

You know that cough going around? Maybe you should do something about it. Don’t take any health issue lightly. Untreated sickness can lead to injury, and untreated injuries lead to death. Injuries can result from long-term sickness or can happen suddenly, as the result of an accident or fire. When an injury occurs, make sure an ambulance is available, otherwise the injured Sim will die.

Beyond the personal tragedies, sickness and injures can have a ripple effect on the city’s economy. Sick Sims stay home from work, reducing efficiency (profit) at their place of employment. And if Sims stay sick longer, they’ll have no money to shop or pay their rent, potentially leading to eviction from their house.

All of this can result in lower tax revenue. While it may seem cold and heartless, it’s in your city’s best financial interest to keep Sims healthy…and paying taxes. So build a Clinic or Hospital to treat sickness and injuries before the city’s budget takes a hit.

Clinic

• Cost: 20,000
• Operational Cost: 400 per hour
• Patient Rooms: 10
• Waiting Room Capacity: 10
• Prerequisites:
• Town Hall
• Description: Is there a cough going around or a series of unfortunate industrial accidents? This small Clinic can treat your sick and injured Sims.

The Clinic is your city’s first line of defense in the persistent battle against sickness and injuries. In its stock state, the Clinic is equipped with one ambulance and can treat ten patients at a time. Such rudimentary health coverage should be more than sufficient for a small city of less than 5,000 Sims.

But as your city grows, and sickness and injuries increase, expand the Clinic with additional Ambulance Bays and Patient Rooms. When expanded to capacity, the Clinic can treat up to 55 patients simultaneously and dispatch up to four ambulances.

If a Clinic is busting at the seams, treating 40 patients or more, consider building a Hospital. Although Hospitals have a high initial cost, their operating cost is less than a fully expanded Clinic.

Modules

Clinic Sign

• Cost: 200
• Operational Cost: None
• Maximum Modules: 1
• Description: Sick people don’t have time to read the address…they need a sign!

Ambulance Bay

• Cost: 10,000
• Operational Cost: 200 per hour
• Capacity: 4 injured Sims
• Maximum Modules: 4
• Description: Ambulances respond to injury emergencies throughout your city. Add an Ambulance Bay to add another ambulance and reduce your Clinic’s response time.

Patient Rooms

• Cost: 12,000
• Operational Cost: 300 per hour
• Patient Rooms: 15
• Maximum Modules: 4
• Description: Provides extra rooms for Sims on bedrest, allowing you to treat more patients at a time.

Hospital

• Cost: 120,000
• Operational Cost: 1,700 per hour
• Patient Rooms: 50
• Waiting Room Capacity: 40
• Prerequisites:
• City Hall
• Department of Safety in the region
• Description: Too many subdural hematomas? Then you need this major medical center. Treat many more sick and injured Sims in this large medical facility. Improve quality of care with additions to your Hospital.

The Hospital is the flagship of your city’s health care system, greatly increasing coverage, recovery time, and survivability for all Sims. When expanded with the maximum number of Patient Rooms, this facility can treat 350 Sims simultaneously, allowing it to serve a metropolis as well as neighboring cities within the region.

In its stock state, treatment offered by the Hospital is identical to treatment offered by a Clinic. But with the addition of the Diagnostic Lab and Surgical Center modules, you can significantly reduce recovery times from sickness and injuries, getting Sims back to work faster.

The Emergency Center can even double the lifespan of injured Sims, allowing them to survive longer while waiting for an ambulance—this is essential if your city has traffic problems. Too many germs in your city? Build a Wellness Center to dispatch a germ-cleaning wellness van.

But the cost of running a Hospital and its modules is enormous, so start small and expand the Hospital as more funds become available.

Modules

Hospital Sign

• Cost: 200
• Operational Cost: None
• Maximum Modules: 1
• Description: It’s kind of important to know where the Hospital is.

Ambulance Bay

• Cost: 15,000
• Operational Cost: 400 per hour
• Number of Ambulances: 2
• Capacity: 8 injured Sims
• Maximum Modules: 4
• Description: Dispatch paramedics to bring injured Sims to your Hospital for treatment. Additional Ambulance Bays reduce your Hospital’s response time.

Patient Rooms

• Cost: 40,000
• Operational Cost: 1,400 per hour
• Patient Rooms: 75
• Maximum Modules: 4
• Description: Additional patient rooms provide you enough capacity to care for the entire region!

Emergency Center

• Cost: 40,000
• Operational Cost: 400 per hour
• Time Until Death: 2x previous time until death
• Maximum Modules: 1
• Description: Patient, calm emergency operators keep Sims with injuries on the line, helping them survive twice as long while waiting for an ambulance to arrive.

Wellness Center

• Cost: 30,000
• Operational Cost: 450 per hour
• Wellness Vans: 1
• Maximum Modules: 4
• Description: Dispatches a wellness van to visit residences in your city. The wellness van helps Sims clean up, removing some of the germs that can cause sickness. Prevention is better than the cure!

Diagnostic Lab

• Cost: 60,000
• Operational Cost: 750 per hour
• Sick Recovery Time: 1/2 the previous recovery time
• Prerequisites:
• University in the region
• University with School of Science in the region
• Maximum Modules: 1
• Description: Advanced Science enables faster diagnoses for sick Sims. Sims recover from sickness twice as fast!

Surgical Center

• Cost: 80,000
• Operational Cost: 750 per hour
• Injury Recovery Time: 1/2 the previous recovery time
• Prerequisites:
• University in the region
• University with School of Medicine in the region
• Complete research project at University in the region
• Maximum Modules: 1
• Description: This top-notch Surgical Center attracts the most skilled surgical talent. The hotshot surgeons here will heal injured Sims twice as fast!

Health Management

Clinics and Hospitals are well-equipped for treating sick and injured Sims. But how does sickness occur in the first place? Are there factors you can control to mitigate health risks in your city? And how do you know when it’s time to expand your health care coverage?

These are all important questions you should be asking yourself. In this section, we’ll take a look at each issue, offering explanations and solutions while stressing the importance of keeping sky-rocketing health care costs low.

Pollution and Germs

In the Germs data map you can see buildings infested by germs due to ground or air pollution. Buildings adjacent or downwind from factories and other polluting facilities run the highest risk of being overrun by germs.

Wondering why all your Sims are getting sick? Sickness is caused by germs, and germs are generated by air and ground pollution. Access the Germs data map as well as the Air and Ground Pollution data maps.

Using these data layers you can see the problem areas of your city where pollution is spreading germs. Uncollected garbage and sewage that seeps to the surface can lead to germ-causing ground pollution.

Deal with any ground pollution issues first by ensuring garbage is being collected and that your sewage system is functioning normally. Addressing air pollution is much more problematic. The best way to do this is through smart zoning early on, ensuring your residential and commercial zones are not downwind from factories and buildings (like the Oil or Coal Power Plant) producing air pollution.

As long as the wind carries air pollution away from your residential and commercial zones, you can avoid widespread sickness outbreaks. However, Sims working within those polluted zones are more vulnerable. So if running a city relying heavily on industrial zones or polluting city specialization, construct a Hospital with a Diagnostic Lab module to treat sickness and reduce recovery time.

Preventative Health Care

Uneducated Sims are more likely to get sick. Construct a Grade School or other education buildings to increase the population’s education level.

As an esteemed mayor, you probably know it’s wise to wash your hands before eating a meal. But such common sense practices aren’t obvious to every Sim living in your city. Your city’s education system can help spread the word, encouraging good hygiene and sanitation—educated Sims are less likely to become sick than uneducated Sims.

So build a Public Library, Grade School, or any other education building to increase your population’s education level. The current education level of your population can be seen in the Education menu’s info tab.

You also can click on any residence to see if the tenants are educated—the word “Educated” will appear at the bottom of each building’s information window. In addition to educating your population, consider adding a Wellness Center to your Hospital.

This module dispatches a wellness van that sanitizes areas of the city with high levels of germs. If you haven’t addressed the root cause of the germs (pollution), the germs will return, however.

Expansion of Services

The Hospital is expensive but can simultaneously treat hundreds of Sims when expanded to full capacity. Click on the Hospital periodically to make sure there are plenty of Patient Rooms still available. If not, consider adding more.

Providing health care is a fundamental responsibility necessary to keep Sims happy, healthy, and productive. But it’s also extremely expensive, putting a serious strain on the city’s budget. It’s important to keep costs low while still providing adequate coverage.

To determine your city’s current health care needs, click on your Clinic to see how many patients it’s treating—if the Clinic is filled to capacity, consider expanding it. Also, pay attention to the info tab within the Health menu.

This tab shows the number of deaths in the city per day as well as the number of injured and sick treated per day. Obviously, if Sims are dying you have a problem—perhaps you need more ambulances to respond to injuries.

But you may also be suffering a deficiency in coverage if sick and injured Sims are going untreated. A single Clinic can serve the health care needs of a small city. But once your city grows to a population of 15,000-20,000, it may be time for a Hospital.

Whether expanding Clinics or building a Hospital, make sure you can afford all new additions to your health care system, as each building and module has a high hourly operational cost. When you build a Hospital, shut down your old Clinics to save money drained from your budget on an hourly basis.

The Clinics can be reopened later to alleviate capacity strains at your Hospital—this is often cheaper than adding new Patient Rooms.

Volunteering Health Resources

Volunteer health vehicles and earn a 100 fee each time one of your ambulances responds to an injury in a neighboring city.

As soon as you construct a Clinic or Hospital, you can share the ambulances associated with these buildings to provide health care in neighboring cities. The wellness van associated with the Wellness Center module can also be volunteered.

Access the Region View, then open the Health menu to begin allocating health vehicles to neighboring cities, connected by the highway. As with fire trucks and other emergency vehicles, when volunteering ambulances and wellness vans your city loses no coverage—the same vehicle can serve both cities simultaneously.

There’s no down side to sharing your vehicles. In fact, your city receives a fee each time one of your ambulances or wellness vans responds to an emergency in the neighboring city—fees received are shown in the Budget panel’s Recent Transactions window.

If your city is new and has no health coverage yet, request ambulances from other mayors in the region. Your city pays nothing to receive coverage, but the responding city will generate extra income when responding to injuries in your city—it’s a win-win situation for both parties!