For the past 10 years, Dr. Nena Lekwauwa has used her spare time to sponsor a medical mission to Nigeria under the auspices of the ACIU-NA, an organization of the Abiriba people where Dr. Lekwauwa chairs the Medical Services Committee.

Dr. Lekwauwa and her husband of 34 years, Aju, have supported the mission/clinic in Abiriba, a town of about 25,000 in the southeast of their Nigerian homeland in the west coast of Africa. When they visit during the Christmas holidays, the town’s population seems to double as families come together and as more patients find their way to the clinic doors. “By mid-January, about half of them leave,” Dr. Lekwauwa said. “So the best opportunity to serve the most people is during the holidays. The exercise is very challenging but remains the most rewarding experience for us, too.” In the beginning, the clinic was open for two to three days every Christmas holiday period. That was when the Lekwauwas first started taking vacation from their jobs in North Carolina to travel to Nigeria to open and operate the clinic.

Today the efforts of the Lekwauwas and others who have been ignited by their passion for care have resulted in the clinic staying open year-round. It has evolved into a Chronic Care Center for Abiriba community. It now serves more than 1,300 registered patients who suffer from conditions ranging from hypertension, diabetes and arthritis to psychiatric conditions, infectious diseases and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

“Most of these people would have been dead without care,” Dr. Lekwauwa said. “We decided after years of this mission to focus on treating patients with chronic conditions.” This led to the founding of the Chronic Care Clinic, currently housed in a space donated by the community. A ground breaking ceremony was held on Christmas Day last month for a new building to expand the clinic. Leaders of the community, including the Enachioken (the natural leader of the Abiriba people) and his council of chiefs were present to welcome the building of the Chronic Care Clinic.  

Clinic with patients

The clinic benefits from donations, including pharmaceuticals from manufacturers as well as physician practices that contribute pharmaceutical samples and a long-term care pharmacy that contributes unused unopened returned medications. Volunteer physicians visit from U.S.A. and Nigeria, and there are two paid staff of advance practice nurses, a nursing assistant and a lab technician. 

“We are so pleased to be changing the life expectancy there,” Dr. Lekwauwa said. “You would be surprised by how many people keel over every year.” 

In a way, the clinic in Nigeria may seem like an extension of the work she does in DHHS as the medical director and chief clinical officer for the Division of Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities/Substance Abuse Services. 

In her role in the division, she often finds herself serving as a liaison with the medical and psychiatric communities in North Carolina, or lending her expertise to the Division of Medical Assistance when questions involving behavioral health or substance abuse issues arise. 

Dr. Lekwauwa started work in 1990 as a staff psychiatrist for Forsyth-Stokes Mental Health (now Center Point Human Services), and in 1996 became medical director. She remained with Center Point Human Services through 2010 when she became clinical director for DMH/DD/SAS. 

Educated at Columbia University at Harlem Hospital, N.Y., her career path rose after she participated in a field trial during the development of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 111-R not long after she and her husband came to the United States. Her husband, Dr. Aju Lekwauwa, holds a PhD in Food Science from Rutgers, the state University of New Jersey. He found a career at Nabisco-R.J. Reynolds, and now teaches Biotechnology at Forsyth Technical Community College in North Carolina.