translated from Spanish: IMSS separates official because his wife traveled by helicopter

Chiapas.- The Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) separated the doctor Iván Tornell Castillo from the vaccination reinforcement plan in Chiapas after his wife boasted on social networks a ride in an official helicopter that transported vaccines against Covid-19.It was last Sunday that the wife of the IMSS official, Elvia Martí, shared images of a tour aboard a Helicopter of Civil Protection of Chiapas used for the transfer of vaccines. It would be silly if being here I do not take my respective photos and videos,” the doctor’s wife wrote on her Instagram account.After the controversy, the IMSS confirmed that the woman has no working relationship with the agency, but has provided voluntary service as a “brigade member and promoter of vaccination.” However, after the dissemination of the images on board the official helicopter, the IMSS determined that “she no longer participates in the air transfers of the immunizer.” Similarly, the doctor Iván Tornell Castillo was separated from the vaccination reinforcement plan, because from now on the vaccines will be transferred exclusively in aircraft and vehicles of the Armed Forces.The IMSS explained that the images disseminated by Elvia Martí correspond to a transfer of the vaccine that followed the “route established and authorized by the corresponding aeronautical authorities.” The tour took place last Sunday at 11:40 a.m., when 10,000 doses of AstraZeneca were transferred to the municipalities of Bochil and Pichucalco, in Chiapas.The trip was made aboard a State Civil Protection helicopter with registration XC-LLO, piloted by Miguel Aguilar, with the doctor Iván Tornell as co-pilot and “commissioner for the transfer of the vaccine”, and his wife Elvia as a volunteer. The IMSS clarified that its personnel have never been in charge of the use of aircraft, so it will open a labor investigation to delineate possible responsibilities. For his part, the head of Civil Protection in Chiapas, Luis Manuel García Moreno, said that there was a “strong estrangement” for the IMSS personnel who “took advantage” of traveling in an official helicopter to take “recreational images and disseminate them on their personal social networks.” The official asked the director of the IMSS, Zoé Robledo, to take “action on the matter” and investigate the public officials who misused the aircraft. The Chiapas government, in turn, declared that the aircraft are for the “exclusive use of tasks related to Civil Protection, health and safety.” Read more: Today’s weather forecast: rains forecast in northern and central Mexico “Gone are those times when planes and helicopters were used for recreational travel by officials,” they said. 



Original source in Spanish