Larry Ojeleye, owner of Affordable Limousine Services, wheels a pair of patient transfer boards, or stretchers, and a wheelchair out of storage Friday. Ojeleye has been collecting medical equipment and will soon make his second trip to Nigeria to donate the equipment to a hospital.

Larry Ojeleye knows that basics — things often taken for granted in some places — are still desired in Third World countries.

The Lawrence resident who moved here 25 years ago from Nigeria has seen patients in his hometown of Ilorin have to sleep on the floor in the hospital because of the lack of stretchers.

“There are a lot of technicians who know what they’re doing, but there’s not a lot of equipment for them to practice their jobs,” said Ojeleye, owner of Affordable Limousine Services in North Lawrence.

Ojeleye last month returned to Nigeria for a week with his daughter to donate a mammogram machine and some wheelchairs to the hospital in Ilorin.

“I see how people are suffering. I just felt like it’s time for me to try to do something about it,” Ojeleye said.

He and his friend Innocent Ndubuisi, a sonographer at Overland Park Regional Medical Center, have led the donation efforts, and they are hoping to make the next donation even larger.

Ojeleye already has three stretchers from the Overland Park hospital, a wheelchair and three dialysis machines with a water-filtration machine stored in his shop in North Lawrence.

He hopes to have a much larger haul when he returns to Nigeria before the end of the year to drop off more medical equipment.

Ojeleye is keeping his eyes open and trying to reach out to area hospitals and medical clinics for any equipment they are no longer using, anything from wheelchairs to stretchers to other machines.

Another of Ojeleye’s goals is to recruit American doctors who can travel to Nigeria to treat the country’s poor.

“It’s something that could go on for a long time and save a lot of lives,” Ojeleye said.

Anyone who wants to donate medical equipment or learn more about the program can call Ojeleye at 841-0463.