Irshad Rain Kabari who was reunited with his family in Mahottari district, Nepal
KOLKATA: In a cross-border effort, four Nepali nationals who spent years in Indian mental health institutions were recently repatriated to their homes — two escorted back by social workers, and two reunited after families traced and retrieved them.The individuals were admitted to govt facilities including Lumbini Park Mental Hospital, Berhampore Mental Hospital and Calcutta Pavlov Hospital through police and court orders. Despite being clinically stable, they remained institutionalised for prolonged periods due to the absence of identity verification, cross-border coordination and repatriation mechanisms.The repatriation process in collaboration with hospital authorities and local communities in Nepal was facilitated by Anjali, a city-based mental health NGO.Two of the individuals were accompanied by Anjali’s social workers across the India-Nepal border and successfully reintegrated into their families in remote districts of Mahottari and Dhanusha. The process involved intensive home tracing — locating villages, verifying identities and rebuilding contact with families who had, in some cases, presumed their relatives dead.For the remaining two, home tracing enabled families to travel to India and take their relatives back from the hospitals.
Initial resistance and suspicion from communities and families were addressed through sustained engagement, verification and local mediation.“These are not isolated cases,” said a member of the Anjali team. “People remain in hospitals not because they need treatment, but because systems fail to connect them back to where they belong.”All four entered the system through legal or police routes. Once admitted, they became administratively contained.
Without clear identity documents or coordination between authorities, discharge was delayed indefinitely.The recent repatriations demonstrate that such situations are not inevitable. With coordinated action between hospitals, civil society organisations and communities, individuals can be safely and promptly returned home.Equally critical is post-return follow-up. The NGO continues to remain in contact with families and communities to support reintegration and monitor well-being — an element often missing in discharge processes.The initiative offers a clear, replicable pathway: systematic home tracing, cross-border coordination, community engagement and sustained follow-up.Without such efforts, many more individuals risk remaining in institutions indefinitely — not due to illness, but due to systemic complexity.These four returns suggest that the problem is not an impossibility. It is inaction.
