Ricardo Neri Vela, who held the position of head of the General Directorate for Protection and Preventive Medicine in Transport (DGPMPT) since 2018, resigned on December 15 due to health reasons, after facing covid-19. His replacement has not yet been named.
During his administration, Neri Vela, performed an audit that culminated in the disappearance of the authorized third party program, under the argument that they found more evidence of bad practices, in addition to the discovery of a network of corruption by the authorities.
DGPMPT opened 12 medical units which were added to the 42 already existing in the country, in order to have a greater capacity to assist staff with federal licenses. The new clinics in Guadalajara, Querétaro, Toluca and Ciudad del Carmen have been opened in the air terminals.
The agency anticipated the opening of nine more units, however, the pandemic made it impossible to start operations. Neri Vela assured that these units are ready to initiate customer service. “With these 63 medical units, we anticipate covering the future demand“, said.
Despite the opening of new clinics, a group of more than a thousand people with aeronautical licenses have expressed dissatisfaction with the decision to eliminate the authorized third party program, as it ensures that the department does not have the necessary capacity to serve users of the four types. transport and reported waiting times of several months to be participated in in some states.
In this situation complaints about the inability to process a meeting were added due to the problems with the online system, to which Neri Vela explained that the mentioned problem was caused by the change of the optical network within the Secretariat.
Now the former head of the agency assured that Preventive Medicine obtained, through the Ministry of Finance, a multi-year contract for the investment of 40 million pesos that were used for the renovation of medical equipment and furniture of Medical Units.
He revealed that from 2021, the future owner of DGPMPT will be able to start a new prepaid programming system, as well as the entry into operation of the new Metra system, which will replace the old Medprev. In this new system, the examiners will enter the information derived from the medical evaluations performed on the staff and, according to the data obtained, the instrument will determine whether the user is eligible to obtain the license for the first time or to renew it, as appropriate. .
The Metra system was developed by the Information and Communication Technologies Unit of the Ministry of Communications and Transport, with the aim of “Avoid manipulating medical results and avoid acts of corruption”.
“At the end of the exams and taking into account the data entered, the system will get an automatic opinion, where the medical staff will not intervene. This will make it possible to combat the part in which several acts of corruption have been observed. “, he explained,
The covid-19 pandemic forced the agency to temporarily suspend the application of medical tests to avoid congestion and cases of covid-19 transmission, and instead was extended until June 30, 2021 legal validity and validity of psychophysical skills, current training certificates and federal licenses.