In November 2016, Emergency Response Unit (ERU) was contacted by Bhawanipur Police Station about a young boy in pain and with a high fever who went to SSKM Hospital for help but could not be admitted there as there was no place for him. 16 year old Shyam (name changed) had a dislodged steel plate in his right hand which was causing him agonising pain. The ERU team immediately took Shyam to Hope Hospital.

Hope doctors treated Shyam for Malaria and the steel plate was aligned so that his hand no longer hurt. Meanwhile, HIVE were trying to learn more about the boy and his family and eventually found that his parents, brothers and sisters lived in a village 30 miles from Kolkata. However Shyam had been raised by his grandfather who lived a further away from the village. The HIVE team went to meet Shyam’s parents who told them that Shyam was a psychiatric patient whose treatment had been haphazard because they could not pay for all his medication; besides he refused to take his medicine. He would often wander off for 2 or 3 days and had a bad habit of stealing from the villagers. Once a villager beat him up for stealing his bicycle and Shyam ran away to Kolkata.

The HIVE team counselled Shyam about returning to his family but Shyam refused to go back, answering that the villagers bullied him and called him names. His parents came to meet him when he was in Hope Hospital and were pleased and grateful to see him taken care of so well. They gave their permission for Shyam to be placed in Punarjiban Home under Hope Kolkata Foundation, where he remains to lead a happy life.