New digital process for marine medical certificates

RDIMS No .: 18966170
Date (Y-M-D) : 2022-12-08

We issue Ship Safety Bulletins for the marine community. Visit our Website at www.tc.gc.ca/ssb-bsn to view existing bulletins and to sign up to receive e-mail notices of new ones.

Purpose

This bulletin is to inform seafarers and marine stakeholders of the new process for the issuance of provisional marine medical certificates, which involves the digital submission of Marine Medical Examination Reports to the Transport Canada Marine Medical Unit.

Scope

This bulletin provides:

An overview of the new digital process for marine medical certificates.
A sample of the new look of the printed provisional medical certificates when the digital submission method is being used.

What you need to know

Transport Canada’s Marine Safety and Security is modernizing how the marine medical program delivers services to seafarers and other clients and stakeholders.

Starting in 2023 a new secure online tool will enable Marine Medical Examiners to digitally complete the Marine Medical Examination Report and digitally submit it to the Transport Canada Marine Medical Unit upon completion.

The new online tool will enable Marine Medical Examiners to complete the Marine Medical Examination Report (MMER) digitally upon completion and submit it directly to Transport Canada’s Marine Medical Unit. Several marine medical examiners have been piloting the process while others are currently receiving training on the use of the tool. The implementation of this new online tool for Marine Medical Examiners will occur in stages with the eventual goal of its mandatory usage by all Marine Medical Examiners.

This new process will save MMER processing time since the results of the examination will be sent digitally to the Transport Canada Marine Medical Unit and there will be mandatory field completion requirements and some fields prompting examiners to include medical details when required. Upon receiving the completed MMER Transport Canada’s Marine Medical Unit will review the MMER and either issue the marine medical certificate, issue a letter advising of fitness assessment status and/or send a letter requesting supplemental health information.

Another advantage of this new digital process is that upon submission of the Report to Transport Canada’s Marine Medical Unit, the validity of the provisional medical certificate will be immediately verifiable online using the following link:

Canadian Maritime Document (CMD) Verification – Search.

With this new process, seafarers will still be able to obtain a paper version of their provisional medical certificate at the end of the examination, if determined Fit or Fit with Limitations.

For comparison, please see

Annex A for the sample of what the printed provisional marine medical certificate (MMC) using the digital process will look like; and
Annex B contains a sample of the current/older version of the provisional MMC.