National exposure

Ajiri Ikede is recent grad of Dalhousie Medical School.

All for One with Debbie Travis is a different kind of how-to TV show. Instead of a team of experts swooping in to do a home makeover, Canada’s home decor guru gets community members to pitch in and volunteer.

In August, Ms. Travis arrived in North Preston, a rural community home to the oldest black community in Canada. With residents of the community gathered round, she proposed a home renovation project in honor of local unsung hero Rose Fraser, a nurse who works at Halifax’s North-End Community Health Centre and serves as the community’s unofficial on-call nurse. In only five days, residents pulled together to repair and redo the Fraser house, even to clean up the yard.

Once in North Preston, however, Ms. Travis added another project to her to-do list: to find a cure for the town’s insufficient medical services. A doctor visits the town of 4,000 for appointments only two hours a week. “I may be meddling but I need to do something about this,” says Ms. Travis, who enlists the help of Dalhousie students and brings them into the community, ostensibly to pitch in with the reno.

Ajiri Ikede, who spent three days in North Preston with five other Dal students, didn’t know what to expect. All he was told was to wear old clothes and be prepared to work.

“The whole idea of working there (in a medical capacity) came to me while I was there,” says Dr. Ikede, 32, a military doctor and recent Dalhousie Medical School graduate. “That part was not scripted at all.”

As Dr. Ikede suggests he might be able to help out, Ms. Travis drops her paintbrush to embrace him. “To me, it’s just makes everything all worthwhile,” she exclaims. “It’s beautiful.”

There is a wrinkle however. Dr. Ikede, who recently moved back to Nova Scotia after working in Ottawa, is only licensed to practice in Ontario. He’s now applying for his license to practice in Nova Scotia, and once he gets that, hopes to work in North Preston one day a week. He’s thinking it might be Wednesdays.

“I’m in a position to help and contribute something,” says Dr. Ikede, who works at the Canadian Forces Health Services Clinic Atlantic (otherwise known as Stadacona Hospital). But he insists the community is helping him too: “I’m mandated by the military to keep my skill set as a family physician, so this will definitely help with that.”

Rose Fraser, who was truly oblivious to what the community was up to, says Dr. Ikede's offer is the icing on the cake. She is concerned that limited accessibility to medical care is taking a toll on North Preston, particularly its men who rarely visit a doctor and then only "when they're really really sick." And she believes Dr. Ikede, originally from Nigeria, can act as a positive role model for North Preston's young people.

"It is so nice to have my house done over and I truly appreciate it," she says. "But when I heard about what he offered, well, oh my gosh. I thought to myself, if it's doable, it will mean so much to my community."

All for One with Debbie Travis airs Sundays, 9 p.m. on CBC-TV.

VIEW EPISODE: All for One with Debbie Travis