Since July 9, São João, one of Portugal’s leading public university hospitals, has opened its wards to visits from patients’ pets. The program is called “Pets and Company” and brings together professionals from the One Health São João program, the Infection Prevention and Control and Antimicrobial Resistance Unit, and the hospital’s “Humanity” service. Its aim is to break isolation and ease the exhaustion caused by prolonged hospital stays.
The therapeutic value of animals is not a discovery of recent years. Countries such as the United Kingdom and Germany have used animals in psychiatric treatment and physical rehabilitation programs since the 19th century. The term “pet therapy” was documented scientifically in the 1960s by a psychologist in the United States who discovered the benefits of such interventions by chance. In Portugal, trained and certified dogs have worked with volunteers in hospitals for years, including at São João.
On May 30, 2023, a 77-year-old patient at Cascais hospital who was recovering from a hemorrhagic stroke received a visit from her dog outdoors. São João is now expanding on that experience with a protocol developed from scratch that normalizes the presence of pets in inpatient areas, recognizing animals as members of the patient’s immediate family.
Visits are requested by the treating doctors or nurses, who identify each case; they are not available to all patients. Risks and benefits are always assessed individually, and the other patients in the ward are asked whether they feel comfortable. The family must provide a veterinary certificate confirming that vaccinations and parasite treatments are up to date and that the animal’s behavior is suitable for a hospital environment.
Any professional — from security staff to a doctor or nurse — can stop a visit if they see that something does not comply with the protocol, says Filipa Ceia, a representative of the One Health São João team. If the animal is unsettled by noise, shows aggression or is visibly dirty, the visit is canceled immediately.
Dogs, cats and even “more exotic species” are allowed, provided all requirements are met, and the animal must be accompanied by an adult. Each patient can have one half-hour visit every seven days, with priority given to terminally ill patients and those with long hospital stays.
Surprisingly, male patients have more often asked for visits from their four-legged companions, although the sample is small. “Men may be more vulnerable when they fall ill; they realize there are things that really matter and want to have them close,” Ceia notes.
Studies of interventions involving trained animals report improvements in patients’ clinical condition: blood pressure drops and the production of hormones associated with stress and anxiety decreases. When the family’s own pet is involved, the benefit is “even greater.”
Euronews followed a visit by Princesa, who came for the second time in 15 days to see António, who has been in hospital for three months. His wife brought the dog into the ward on a leash. “My heart was pounding with joy. She is like family, like a daughter to me,” said the 65-year-old, who is undergoing rehabilitation for problems with balance and walking.
The diagnosis has not been confirmed, but doctors suspect a rare blood disease. Reuniting with the dog, who was given to him five years ago after being rescued from the street, acts as a “balm for the soul.”
These meetings bring “smiles, cooperation with treatment and motivation to leave hospital,” Ceia adds, while also seeing benefits for the animal and for healthcare professionals.
The program began in early July, and no infections have been recorded so far. The team plans to review the protocol later to address any weaknesses, although the possibility of “incidents” is considered “extremely unlikely.”
In northern and central Europe, infection control rules are stricter: assistance dogs take priority, and visits from patients’ own pets usually take place in isolated areas, such as open courtyards or gardens. For example, Sint-Trudo Hospital in Sint-Truiden, Belgium, opened a separate pavilion in 2023, connected to but separate from the main building, where animals enter only through an outdoor courtyard and are prohibited from passing through the hospital’s interior.
Instead of building physical barriers, São João introduced rules that maintain clinical rigor within a flexible protocol based on scientific evidence.
“There is excessive fear of zoonotic disease transmission, which is not borne out by the studies,” Ceia says. As the infectious disease specialist explains, most diseases spread more easily from person to person than from animal to person. “Because we do everything we can to ensure safety, and because patients will live with their animals when they return home, the risk really is negligible. We need to ask whether, in trying to reduce the risk, we are denying patients the benefit,” she adds.
São João’s innovation, the report concludes, lies not only in balancing empathy with infection control, but also in its autonomy to humanize care without waiting for lawmakers — unlike, for example, Italy, where the change was advanced through decrees issued by regional governments.
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