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Service Animals

Service Animals

Rules & Guidelines

Montefiore Nyack Hospital welcomes your service animal during your visit to our facilities. A service animal is trained to perform specific tasks directly related to the needs of an individual with a disability as defined in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). 

Emotional support, therapy, comfort or companion animals aren’t considered service animals and aren’t eligible to accompany patients or visitors to our facilities. 

Service animals must be healthy, housebroken, clean, behaved, vaccinated and on a leash or under other methods of control. Please bring items your service animal requires, including water, food, medicine and plastic waste bags. We offer a specific area on the campus for walking service animals as needed. 

Hospital staff is not permitted to watch over or care for your service animal. You or a designee will be responsible for the care of your animal while at our facility. Please supply our staff with the name and contact information of someone who can care for your animal should you not be able to do so while at our facility. 

Service animals who cannot perform a task on a leash must be under the handler's control by voice command or hand signals. Please advise individuals who approach your service animal that they’ll interfere with the animal’s ability to do its job. 

Where Service Animals Aren't Allowed

Some areas in the hospital where service animals aren’t permitted include isolation rooms, operating rooms, MRI suites, hyperbaric oxygen chambers and others. If you’re scheduled for a test or procedure, please let us know you’ll have a service animal and bring someone with you to provide care while you’re in an area that doesn’t allow service animals. 

Should your service animal threaten others by biting or scratching, we must report the incident to the proper authorities. We may require the animal to be removed from the facility if its behavior doesn’t align with our policy or poses a safety hazard. 

Your experience and safety, as well as that of other patients, staff and visitors, is paramount. We’ll work with you to ensure that you and your service animal have appropriate access during your time at our hospital. For more information and questions, call our Patient Experience Department at 845-348-6778 or patientrelations@montefiorenyack.org