Assistance animals

If you have an assistance animal, you can bring them with you to our facilities.

In some cases, an assistance animal may be refused access/asked to leave our facilities, including:

• where the animal is a risk to staff and consumer/visitor safety; dogs in public places (including hospitals) must be controlled
• where you or your carer is unable to care for the animal.

What is an assistance animal?

Assistance animals can include, but are not limited to:

• Guide Dogs: supporting people with visual impairment or sight loss with guiding
• Hearing Assistance Dogs: supporting people with hearing loss or impairment
• Assistance Dogs: aiding mobility and support daily living such as undressing and picking dropped items up off the floor, opening and closing doors etc.
• Medical Alert Dogs: trained to constantly monitor their partner’s health condition and alert to impending episodes where their health would acutely deteriorate. The alert allows the person to take preventative action to avoid/limit the episode, or to make themselves safe, thus reducing the risk of injury during the episode
• Autism Assistance Dogs: supporting people with autism
• Dogs supporting people who have a mental health illness/disorder
• NDIS-approved assistance animals.

Animals other than assistance animals

Only assistance animals may remain with a patient during their hospital stay.

Other animals such as pets or emotional support animals may attend our facilities for visits only.

Emotional support animals assist people to feel better and support people through mental and other medical illnesses but are not trained with specific skills to alleviate conditions. Unlike assistance animals, they are not allowed to be in public spaces including hospitals but can visit the hospital in planned circumstances.

Please talk to our staff if you want to arrange an emotional support animal visit.

Some animals cannot visit

Animals excluded from visiting our facilities for infection prevention and control and/or work health and safety risks are:

• Animals over 65 kilograms
• Non-human primates (monkeys, chimpanzees etc)
• Native animals of any description
• Any venomous animal
• Rodents (eg, rats, guinea pigs, ferrets, or mice)
• Poultry, birds
• Reptiles, including turtles, lizards, and amphibians
• Dogs that create an unsafe environment, for example the animal is worried, angry, unhappy, or is exhibiting aggressive behaviours (such as growling or barking).

Requirements for assistance animals

All assistance animals staying at our facilities must be:

• Toilet trained
• Well socialised, friendly towards strangers and obedient, not boisterous
• At least one year old
• Dry, clean, well-groomed with short nails, and used to being indoors. For planned visits, the animal should be bathed in an antibacterial shampoo before and after the stay.
• Well behaved around wheelchairs, frames, and other equipment and furniture
• Fully vaccinated with evidence if coming for a planned stay
• Free from obvious infection, that is, without open wound, ulcer, weeping eyes, sores on lips, ears, worms, parasites etc. Animals showing any sign of being unwell – not eating as usual, changed bowel motions, dull and listless, change in disposition etc – are not able to be at our facilities until cleared by a veterinarian.

Toileting

All faecal deposits by your animal are to be collected immediately by you/your carer using a gloved hand, or inverted plastic bag, and disposed of into a general waste bin.

We will provide gloves and a plastic bag. Please ask the staff if you need these during your stay.

Where possible, your animal should be toileted in an outside space and before entering the building.

Feeding

You and/or your carer are responsible for providing food and feeding the animal during your stay.

You need to bring your animal’s bowl or another feeding container with you. For an unplanned visit, we may provide a suitable water/feed bowl.

Where possible during your stay, you should feed your animal in an outside space. If there is no suitable outdoor space to feed your animal, then we’ll identify a space away from other patients/visitors.

Please ask us if you need water for your animal during your stay.

Patient safety is a priority

• All patients and/or their family/carers affected by the animal’s stay will be asked if they are comfortable with the animal’s presence. For example, if you are in a four-bed ward, all patients in the room must be comfortable with your assistance animal staying.
• Animals should not be in the area while food is being prepared, served or eaten.
• All staff, patients, visitors and handlers who handle the animal must perform hand hygiene immediately after handling the animal (or their waste or bedding etc) and always before personal care, wound care, food preparation or consumption.
• Assistance animals must be kept quiet during any treatment/procedures and placed an appropriate distance from the point of procedure.
• You and/or your carer must clean your animal’s cage regularly.
• The animal must always have a handler in attendance and not be dependent on health care staff to meet its needs. The animal needs to be always under effective control by the handler.
• The handler and primary CHS staff member must monitor the animal’s behaviour, risk assessing the situation throughout the stay. If the animal displays signs of distress or anxious behaviour, the handler should remove the animal from the current environment and move to a safe area.
• Should the handler not be able to control the animal’s behaviour and this is creating an unsafe environment for staff and consumers, our staff will request that the animal leaves the premises and will:
  • contact the consumer’s Next of Kin, or
  • consult the Advance Consent Direction or Advance Agreement that might identify a predetermined plan of care for the animal, or
  • as a last resort, contact Domestic Animal Services, or
  • if staff or visitors are in immediate danger, contact ACT Policing.
• Should the handler/patient leave the hospital without their animal, the staff will:
  • Attempt to contact the handler/consumer in the first instance.
  • Attempt to contact the handler/consumer’s next of kin, or emergency contact, or anyone else they know who could take the animal.
  • Attempt to contact the RSPCA or
  • As a last resort, contact Domestic Animal Services.

Visiting the Emergency Department with an assistance animal

When you attend the Emergency Department with an assistance animal, you/your carer are responsible for the full care for the animal, including water, food, and providing outdoor time to toilet the animal.  If you or your carer are unable to care for the animal, it may not be allowed into the Emergency Department with you.

Adult Mental Health Units

Assistance Animals are not permitted to stay in the following areas:

• High Dependency Unit and Lomandra Unit at Dhulwa Mental Health Unit.
• Mental Health Short Stay Unit in Building 12. This unit has no outdoor access and is a confined small unit. However, animal visits may be arranged, please talk to unit staff.

Assistance Animals can be with you in the remaining adult mental health units. A risk assessment will need to be completed to ensure you are safe to remain with the animal and able to care for your animal while you stay.