Moses Lake Medical Team readies for another Nigeria trip
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald Lateef Olaniyan and the medical team he formed are raising money for a trip to Nigeria later this month.
MOSES LAKE — The Moses Lake Medical Team is getting ready to make another trip to Nigeria.
“This is my 12th trip,” said Mickey Eddie, a registered nurse and the team’s vice president for operations. “I like the idea of being able to help people who can’t do a lot for themselves.”
The team, which was formed in 2008 by Lateef Olaniyan, a pharmacist at Southgate Pharmacy in the Moses Lake Harvest Foods, has made 13 trips to Olaniyan’s native Nigeria and one trip to Nicaragua during the years as part of its mission to help people in developing countries.
Twenty-two team members are preparing to leave for Kibbe State in Nigeria on April 26, where they will spend two weeks.
“I went home back in 2007 after I got my pharmacy degree to see if I could get a license in Nigeria,” Olaniyan said. “I saw the difference in health care, and it was so concerning, so I wanted to contribute.”
With a group of other Moses Lake health care professionals, Olaniyan formed the medical team.
“I wanted to bring back one or two doctors and provide some service and some medicine,” he said. “I talked to some people in Moses Lake, and they took it bigger than I ever expected.”
Olaniyan said now the team brings hundreds of pounds of medicine and equipment when it goes abroad, and has found partners with organizations like the Lions Club, which donated 1,500 pairs of eyeglasses for their first trip.
“I want to stress how thankful we are to the community of Moses Lake,” Olaniyan said. “You are so generous, and we are extremely grateful.”
However, transporting that much medical equipment is expensive. To ship 3,000 pounds of equipment and medicine cost the team $29,000 this year.
“It’s no small endeavor,” Eddie said.
This Saturday, April 21, the Moses Lake Medical Team will be holding a fundraising dinner and auction at Red Rock Elementary School in Royal City. Up for bid will be a football signed by Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and a signed jersey from linebacker K. J. Wright.
Tickets are $30, and all proceeds will go to support the Moses Lake Medical Team.
Olaniyan said that while the team is prepared to go anywhere there is a need, they focus on Nigeria because they know the country, the people and the customs.
“We’re set up to go anywhere the need is, but for safety, we don’t go in harm’s way,” he said.
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.