Review: 41318 Heartlake Hospital

With so many winter sports on the go, it's lucky Heartlake Hospital is nearby to take of all those sprained wrists, bruised egos and broken legs. Lets have a closer look at the standard of service you can expect at the Heartlake Hospital.

This set was provided by the Operations & Community Engagement of The LEGO Group for the purpose of sharing set details with fans.

Opinions provided here solely reflect those of our reviewer. 

Photographs are property of Friends Bricks and are not directed by TLG in any fashion.

The front of the box shows the front of the hospital, and the mini-dolls and baby(!!) featured in the set, as well as a snippet of what’s inside the building. At three levels high, this is among the larger of the Friends buildings.


The box design with the standard purple flanges and ribbon wave across the top indicates that this set belongs to the base theme.  

The back of the box highlights the numerous accessories and play features packed into this set.



The side of the box gives us the usual warnings and indicates the size of the pieces by giving us a 1:1 image of Olivia .

 

Inside the box are:

• one instruction booklet
• two sticker sheets, one of them being transparent
• seven numbered parts bags (with a further 14 inner baggies)
• one un-numbered bag with five 8x16 plates in Tan.

The numbered parts bags aren’t particularly big or heavy and there is only one for each number (ignoring the inner baggies). Not that I’m complaining, as it makes them much easier to lay out for taking the review photos!

Let’s take a closer look at the instruction booklet:



The front cover of the instruction booklet has the same main image as the set box, minus the inset showing the names of the baby and mini-dolls and the inset showing the interior. 

The instructions are laid out well, with easy to follow instructions.



The inside back pages of the instruction booklet feature:

• full parts list (3 pages)
• the other new Friends sets, including those from the snow sub-theme
• sets from themes that appear to be targeted at girls.

   

   

The back cover has the gorgeous Emma letting us know how we can win a cool LEGO prize. 



Here’s the parts that are found in Bag 1:



The parts that caught my eye were the:

• White hand bandage, which is unique to this set
• Red bicycle and Light Aqua medical accessories (neither are new, but always welcome!)
• Modified plate 3 x 2 with hole in Medium Azure which is new in that colour this year and is only available in one other set, Stephanie’s Friendship Cakes (41308)
• Brick separator (looks like the plague is not yet over).

At the end of the first bag we haven’t yet started the hospital building itself, but we have a range of supporting sub-sets. Looks like we have a bicycle, wheelchair, medical trolley bed, medical helicopter, medical trolley and a stretcher:



We’ll have a closer look at the mini-dolls shortly.

The medical trolley is neat and compact. It has loads of storage and I like the design of the handle.


The patient transport options are a bit dubious though, especially the wheel chair.





The helicopter also left me wanting a little more. How is Olivia meant to steer the helicopter when there are no controls in the cockpit at all. And it really should have a winch for the hook and something more than just an axle to hold the tail rotor!

However, these are mostly adult complaints. My daughter (10 y.o.) and her best friend thought they were a little odd looking, but happily played with them for ages.

This brings us to Bag 2, which looks like it has more vehicle parts.



The parts worth noting are the Light Aqua wedge (roof plate), Light Aqua 4x6 plates and the ,Light Bluish Grey 2x3 tile, which are unique to this set in those colours.

These parts build the ambulance:



I’m not sold on the Light Aqua for the roof of the ambulance, but I love the Dark Blue / Magenta / white colour scheme. It’s also great to see that the ambulance has a steering wheel.  

The back of the ambulance does not have much in it, but this does mean it is spacious and easy to get things in and out of.



This brings us to Bag 3, which is the first bag that looks like it has parts for building the structure of a hospital:



I couldn’t identify any parts amongst these that are unique to this set, but I’d like to make a shout out to the Lime 6x6 plates with the round corners (great for landscaping). The 2x8 door rail plates suggest where about the get some sliding doors!

These parts begin the ground floor of the hospital, and the aquarium and water cooler. The Dark Blue / Magenta / White colour scheme from the ambulance is carried through to the hospital building. Works well here too!



I quite like the design of the water cooler. It’s great to see disabled access to the building. I don’t recall seeing that in any other official LEGO sets (Friends or otherwise).

This brings us to Bag 4:



The first things that catch my eyes are the White shutters, which are unique to this set in that colour. I don’t imagine it will be long before we see these being showcased in MOC modular buildings!

Other things to note:

• The Magenta 6x8 Slope is unique to this set in that colour
• There’s a nice collection of printed tile, including sticky notes and chocolate
• Red phone
• Light Bluish Grey 2x3 tiles

The parts in Bag 4 completes the ground floor, including the interior (the front desk, waiting room and ambulance / emergency entrance):





I love the design of this front counter - very simple, but it looks so good. I also like the wet floor sign.



I also think the waiting room is well done, with plenty of seats and the obligatory vending machine for those long waits.



As I’ve said before, Heartlake City is a very trusting place, with money commonly laying around rather than in wallets or purses.



Could have given a little more thought to how the phone could be attached. A brick with clip perhaps?

This brings us to Bag 5:



The things that immediately caught my eye here was baby Ola swaddled in the Yellowish Green blanket. So cute. Google informs me that “Ola” can be either a boy’s or girls’ name, but that it was originally a masculine name. I’m going to assume its a boy to even up the gender balance in the set.





The way that the baby is held by the mini-dolls (and minifigures) is a little funny as it looks like whoever holding it is trying to pass him off to the next person. It’s not easy to place the baby facing towards the person holding it (and have it held firmly in place).

Ola appears to be unique in this set in this colour. There was a Dark Tan one released in 2016, as part of the Tribal Woman collectible minifigure.

Other parts that caught my eye were the:

• Magenta book (not unique)
• Light Aqua 1x1x5 bricks (unique in that colour)
• Dark Blue 2x14 plates (unique in that colour).

Not surprisingly, the parts in Bag 5 build a maternity room, complete with bed, rocking cot, baby bath, change table and weigh station. The roof above the maternity room is used for the helipad, which is just what you need for getting the new born baby off to sleep!  





Patient safety during transport doesn’t appear to be a high priority at the Heartlake Hospital. Where’s the three point harness!



This brings us to Bag 6 and I must admit that the parts are starting to feel very familiar with the basic facade in each module being built in the same way, with the same colours.



Nevertheless, there are a few things worth noting, such as the scissors and skeleton. There aren’t too many skeletons in Friends sets and this one is the kind with the floppy arms, which I think is perfect for a skeleton. There is also another hand bandage and a head bandage.







I’m not sure what this room is, but I called it the x-ray room since that seems to be the main piece of equipment in this room. It also holds bandages and medicines, but the lack of a table or chair suggests it is not a treatment room.

Here we have Olivia modelling the head bandage. Fortunately, no-one was hurt to bring you this shot.


This brings us to the last bag, Bag 7:



Interestingly, the first thing we build in Bag 7 is the examination chair for the module we build from the parts in Bag 6. Guess it is a treatment room, rather than just an x-ray room.  



The rest of the parts from Bag 7 build the operating theatre and roof.





I love the equipment in this room, especially the operating chair / bed, lighting and IV drip. The lights are huge, but I guess you’d want good lighting if someone was operating on you!



This completes the hospital building:





Let’s take a closer look at the mini-dolls:



From left to right, we have Olivia, Dr Patel and Henry. I probably should have included Ola here, but we’ve already had a good look at him.

The side profile highlights the differences in the torsos between the teenager and adult woman and man.



Let’s take a closer look at Olivia first.



Olivia seems to be wearing an all new outfit, with a White vest over a Dark Pink top, matched with Sand Blue capri pants and Dark Pink lace up sneakers.
Olivia’s cropped pants make her ankles look big, but they are the same size as other leg assemblies.



Doctor Patel is wearing a White vest (buttoned up) over a Medium Azure top, which is unique to this set. Her White skirt and Medium Azure sandal combination is unique to this set in terms of the colour of the skin and shoes. Doctor Patel’s face, with the Brown eyes with two eyelashes and Bright Pink lips, and hair, which is a Black bob with a side part, are not unique.



Henry’s face, with the Light Blue eyes and open grin pattern, appears to be the same as James’ (Stephanie’s dad. Is it just me, or does Henry have a slightly embarrassed look on his face? Like he’s embarrassed about having come off his bike?

Henry is wearing a Dark Red / White / Red short sleeve shirt with a pocket, which is unique to this set. He has teamed it with Dark Blue trousers and Dark Tan shoes, which appears to be a favourite amongst the male population of Heartlake City.

This brings us to the spare parts, of which there are quite a few:



Let’s have anther look at the set as a whole.



Overall, the Heartlake Hospital gets a check for playability as judged by my daughter and her BFF. They played with it for ages, and the Hospital is now filled with to overflowing with mini-dolls needing medical attention.

When you consider the parts bag by bag, there doesn’t seem to be much there. However, there’s actually a decent collection of Dark Blue bricks, Tan 1x2 grill bricks, Magenta plates and White parts. Also there’s plenty of inspiration for interiors, with the rooms cleverly furnished.

If you were paying close attention you may have noticed that I skipped a few stickers. This set has more than is really needed and I find that they sometimes limit what else you can do with the parts. It has nothing to do with me being particularly bad at putting on the stickers.

Thanks for reading! C&C welcome.

Note: All exclusive parts mentioned in the colours noted were applicable at the time this review was posted. Parts may be available in other colours and sets after the post of this review. Brickset and BrickLink were use to verify this information.