IIMC was born from a dream. The dream belonged to Dr. Sujit Brahmochary when he was a teenager, living in a remote village in Bangladesh. When Bangladesh was struggling to cope up with the post independent war in 1972, thousands of people lost their properties and loved ones and turned into refugee camps. Teen Sujit Brahmochary one of them as his family had the same fate. Young Sujit was mournful not looking at their sad situation but to the other people’s suffering from ill health inflicted with diseases. He wished if he could have done anything to help them. He took an opportunity to fulfil his wish when a team of Belgian doctors came to provide medical services to the camp. He was hanging with them doing something like making sense of people’s Bengali language to the team by his interpretation in broken English. His greatest learning from this association was that a doctor can do a huge difference when people struggle between the life and death. He dreamt to become a doctor and help the people, especially mother and children, suffer from health situation. Once the emergency period was over, next 15 years, partly with the support of Belgian doctor friends and partly harnessing his determination, he was on the course of materialising his goal. Young Sujit came out of Calcutta Medical College with the MBBS degree and Louvain University in Belgium with the Paediatric Specialist. Now he needed to come back to India to put his knowledge in practice for poor mothers and children.

He was over the moon when Saint Teresa of Calcutta invited him to work in her child hospital, Shishu Bhaban. In her direct association, he concentrated in treating the sick children and mothers working days and night, almost forgetting about his well-being. Saint Teresa’s eyes did not overlook such dedication. She found he was serving with the devotion of a ‘Monk’, and she used to call him ‘Social Monk’. In 2 years, he equipped himself with having the medical knowledge from two best universities and the practical experience working with most eminent Saint Teresa to serve independently. When he shared his dream with Saint Teresa, she advised him to go remote areas, and serve poor mothers and children. Besides, she suggested to get ‘germinated’ rather than ‘planted’. She wanted he grow up with the people by serving, knowing and experiencing about their real needs.

 In the middle of 1989, he came to Sonarpur, which was then a remote, poverty-stricken village, and managed to hire a cowshed and began to offer his service—the birth of IIMC took place. He surprised both friends and local people. The friends who established their business by treating people and the local people who never had seen any qualified doctor could be available to serve them free coming at the doorstep of their houses. However, friends were helpful to provide him with free medicines and the local people with voluntary services. The patients, began to come not only from within the area but also from other areas, and their numbers were increasing day by day. Their common health problem was all kinds of complicates related to malnutrition.

After about six months, it came to his notice that half of the patients were coming to the humble outdoor clinics for second, third, and even forth times. There was no question about his treatment, but still the question remained why they were coming again and again. He was looking for the reason and found that malnutrition controlled their families, which was clearly related to the short of supply and consumption of nutritious food in families. His answer to the problem was holistic support to the families that would ultimately lead them towards their empowerment.