Some N.S. drivers still need doctor’s note

From today's edition of The Chronicle Herald:

They submitted paperwork before form scrapped

By Michael Lightstone, Staff Reporter

Applicants with mental health issues who’ve already filed a provincial driver’s licence form with a controversial question about psychiatric history must still supply the government with personal medical information, a spokeswoman for Service Nova Scotia said Thursday.

Donna Chislett said licence applications from such candidates won’t be purged and the province won’t start the process over with revised forms that leave out the mental illness reference.

"Once you’ve ticked Yes" on a question under the contentious form’s medical declaration section, "it starts the process going," Ms. Chislett said.

That means an applicant who is managing mental illness, and who applied for or renewed his or her licence using the controversial form, still has to get a doctor to do a physical and provide the province with the corresponding information.

But in the future, if the same person fills out the revised document without the reference to psychiatric history, that applicant will be spared the appointment with a physician and the filing of medical information with the government.

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