Animal Hospital Lockers

• Always check the reception hall lockers first for free cash and items.
• Security Key Card unlocks the best weapon lockers — prioritize it.
• Keys are lost each shift, so plan your locker route early.
• Basement lockers require the full Doctor's Key quest chain first.

There are thirteen lockers on this page and you will not open them all in a single shift. Ranking them by what you get back for the seconds of travel gives a much shorter list, and the order is not the same as the order they appear on the map.

1. Reception hall, right wall. It is always unlocked, it costs nothing to open, and it sits on a path you were walking anyway. There is no reason ever to skip it — it is the cheapest value in the game.
2. Break room, near the coffee machine. Sanity is the resource that decides whether you survive the back half of a shift, and this locker hands you some for free on the way past.
3. Security office and weapons locker room. These are the only lockers that change what you are capable of rather than topping up what you have. Nothing else on the list alters a fight; these two decide whether you can take one.
4. Basement lockers. The highest ceiling on the page and the only ones where the journey, not the lock, is the risk. Worth it only when the shift is already under control upstairs.
5. Floor 2 lockers. Reliable rather than exciting — medkits and consumables you would otherwise have spent Animal Coins on. Take them when your route already passes them.

The pattern is that the free lockers are worth a detour and the locked ones are worth planning for. Since keys are lost every shift, the practical approach is to pick one card tier as your target for the run and route through the lockers it opens, rather than collecting cards and hoping the route works out. Locker routes that fit the wider loop are covered on the hospital route page.