To: The Maryland State House, The Maryland State Senate, and Governor Larry Hogan
Maryland Medical Malpractice Obstacles
You should NOT need to include a Certificate of Merit, signed by a health care professional in the same specialty, to start a medical malpractice case in the Maryland Health Care Dispute Resolution Office. There must be a less restrictive method to keep worthless claims from entering the system without making the court process too difficult for legitimate claims to be entered.
Why is this important?
Given the fact there are so many obstacles to discourage former patients from submitting a medical malpractice case in Maryland, I have had a great deal of trouble with my case this year. Why does the Maryland House, Senate and Governor make patients' situations as difficult as they do? Medical Doctors obviously do NOT want to sign a Certificate of Merit against another M.D. Given the fact you must have a signed Certificate of Merit to enter a case into the Maryland Health Care Dispute Resolution Office, many doctors guilty of malpractice are never found responsible for their distructive actions. A psychiatrist, Dr. Sanjeev Singhal, decided I was bipolar, even though I am not bipolar. After being labled as bipolar, no practioner would listen to my MS symptoms. My former Neurologist, Dr. Prafull Dave, would not write me an Rx to MRI my brain, that I requested, while I still had RRMS. My former Orthopeadic M.D. , Dr. Mark Chilton, even wrote in my medical records that the pain I was experiencing was because I was bipolar. Given the fact I knew something must be wrong with me, I kept trying to have a health care professional to properly diagnose my condition. After my Multiple Sclerosis was not diagnosed or treated for more than 3 years, my MS developed from Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis to Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis and I am now permanently and totally disabled.