Requires hospitals and healthcare facilities which provide emergency services to develop plans to provide reasonable accommodations to house a patient's service animal until such time as they can be picked up.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
2247
2023-2024 Regular Sessions
IN SENATE
January 19, 2023
___________
Introduced by Sen. WEIK -- read twice and ordered printed, and when
printed to be committed to the Committee on Investigations and Govern-
ment Operations
AN ACT to amend the civil rights law, in relation to requiring certain
healthcare facilities to develop plans to provide reasonable accommo-
dations for service animals
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Section 47-b of the civil rights law is amended by adding a
2 new subdivision 8 to read as follows:
3 8. Each hospital or healthcare facility that provides emergency
4 services shall develop a plan to provide a reasonable accommodation for
5 service animals brought into such facility during an emergency or any
6 time that a patient needs medical treatment and such service animal
7 cannot be with such patient. Such reasonable accommodation shall
8 include, but not be limited to, a space or area to house such service
9 animal until such time as a family member, designated person, or service
10 animal agency can collect such service animal or such service animal can
11 be reunited with the patient at the hospital or healthcare facility. For
12 purposes of this subdivision, "service animal" shall mean any animal
13 that has been partnered with a person who has a disability and has been
14 trained or is being trained, by a qualified person, to aid or guide a
15 person with a disability.
16 § 2. This act shall take effect on the one hundred twentieth day after
17 it shall have become a law.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD04981-01-3
