Dr. Walter Ezeigbo has gone to Nigeria three times to treat people who don't have access to medical care. Each time, he has returned with a profound sense of gratitude.
"I appreciate every single thing that comes my way," he said.
Having spent time with people who may have no electricity or running water, he thinks about how, here, we take it for granted that the light will come on when we flip the switch and the water will flow when we turn the spigot.
"We are very, very lucky," he said.
After his first two trips, that aura of gratitude lasted for about three months.
"Then I go back to my old ways," he said with a laugh.
His latest trip was in October. The memories of the looks on people's faces after he treated them are still fresh in his mind and he is still feeling grateful for the life he has.
Ezeigbo, 43, grew up in Nigeria in a family well off enough to send him to college at Norfolk State University in Virginia. From there, he put himself through medical school at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk.
A fellowship in sports medicine brought him to Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in 1996. He stuck around and is now one of three doctors in Pine Ridge Family Practice on North Point Boulevard, which is part of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center Community Physicians.
He and his wife, Uju, who is also from Nigeria, have three daughters -- Ifeoma (which, in Ibo, means "something good happened to us"), Ogechi ("God's time is the best") and Onyinye ("God's gift") who arrived in October.
Ezeigbo made his first trip in 2006. Armed with medication that had passed its expiration date but that was still potent and that he could give away, he flew to Nigeria on his own and set up camp in a small farming community called Nanka in the state of Anambra.
"It's where I know people," he said. "They don't have any doctor."
He started each day at 7 a.m. If he had no appropriate medication to treat a problem, he gave the person vitamins. He knew that some people had walked 10 miles to get there. How could he let them walk away with nothing?
He ate nothing during the day and drank little so that he would not have to take breaks. He saw as many people as he could before he wore out at 7 p.m. or so.
"By the time I am done there may still be 70 people waiting to be seen," Ezeigbo said.
He would tell them to come back in the morning, and he would go get something to eat. On a particularly busy work day in the United States, he might see 30 people. Working 12-hour days without breaks in Nigeria, he was able to help 350 people in five days.
"At the end of the day, you can't even talk," he said. "That's the hardest thing I have ever done."
But it was also among the most exhilarating things that he had ever done. He was eager to go back.
For his 2007 trip, he arranged to have four medical students from a Nigerian medical school join him. They issued tickets to people so that no one had to worry about keeping a place in line.
"Each time you go, you learn something new," he said.
For this year's trip, he had help not only from medical students and residents but from two Nigerian doctors.
"When you have help, it's a lot different," he said. "This time, we actually made provision for lunch."
They were able to see 900 people in five days.
Ezeigbo goes to Nigeria with the active support of his wife. This time, she took care of such details as repackaging the medication so that it could be shipped and dispensed more readily.
Each time he goes, he comes home wanting to be able to do more the next time. Eventually, he also hopes to bring here for treatment some of those he cannot help there, such as the woman with a ventricular septal defect, sometimes referred to as a hole in the heart.
With that in mind, he is in the process of establishing a nonprofit organization called Afrique Health Foundation and looking at ways to raise money.
"Ideally, my goal is to eventually build a decent clinic," he said.
■ Kim Underwood can be reached at 727-7389 or at kunderwood@wsjournal.com.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement