Robert Cribb, Declan Keogh of the Investigative Journalism Bureau, Max Binks-Collier, and Danielle Orr report:
During an intense flare-up of her depression, Karysa Mackay checked into a Thunder Bay hospital for crisis care.
Three days later, Mackay had her licence suspended after a psychiatrist she doesn’t recall ever meeting reported her to the Ministry of Transportation.
For Mackay, 24, who relied on her Hyundai sedan to shuttle between her nursing school classes and two part-time jobs caring for elderly patients, it was “an absolute blindside.”
Medical condition reports, or MCRs, are little-known but widely used provincial forms that some medical professionals must file to the ministry when patients have certain potentially dangerous conditions that “warrant a licence suspension,” according to the ministry. When a report is submitted flagging these conditions, “it will result in a licence suspension,” a ministry document states.
Read more of Suspended, Part 1 at Toronto Star.