About MFC

Medico Friend Circle (MFC) is a nationwide group of socially conscious, secular, pluralist, pro-people, pro-poor health practitioners, scientists, and social activists interested in the health problems of the people of India.

Since its inception in 1974, MFC has critically analyzed the existing health care system and has tried to evolve an appropriate approach towards health care that is humane and can meet the needs of the vast majority of the people in our country. It is an organization that has operated as a ‘thought current’ without allegiance to a specific ideology. Its only commitment has been to intervene in and understand the debates, policies, and practices of health in India. The understanding that our present health service is lopsided and is in the interest of a privileged few prevails as a common conviction. It has critically been analyzing the existing health care system and has tried to evolve an appropriate approach towards health care that is humane, and which can meet the needs of most of the people in our country. It tries the foster among health workers a current that upholds human values and aims at restructuring the health care system.

It offers a forum for dialogue/debate and sharing of experiences with the aim of realizing the goal outlined above and for taking up issues of common concern for action. It is a loosely knit group of friends from various backgrounds, medical and non-medical, often differing in their ways of thinking and in their modes of action. But the understanding that our present health service as well as the system of medical education is lopsided and is in the interest of a privileged few, prevails as a common conviction.

Given the fact that MFC’s limited membership is geographically scattered, that our members are getting increasingly overburdened with local responsibilities, given our ideological heterogeneity and given the self-imposed shoe-string budget of the organization, it has been rather difficult to keep ourselves going as a collective. Major and minor hiccoughs have been part of MFC’s existence. Nonetheless, we have contributed for more than four decades as a nationwide, secular, pluralist, alternative, and pro-people platform of health activists and friends.

An executive committee made up of members supports the work of the MFC convenor/s who serve in rotation for a term of two years. The MFC bulletin editor is also chosen from among the members.