Nigerian-born doctor Timothy Igbenije welcomed into Manilla community to serve at Manilla Multipurpose Service and HealthOne

In the enormous West African nation, people who live in rural areas can't access health care.

In small town Australia, all too often, we just don't.

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"A lot of the patients down here are a bit more self-sufficient," he laughed.

His first big surprise at the clinic was when a 70-year man came in with what the man reported was a minor niggle.

"He reluctantly wanted me to examine him. But when I examined him it was very obvious he's got serious infection," Dr Igbenije said.

"When I said 'that's not good we need to send you to hospital' he was like really? He was very reluctant.

"A week later he came back to me and said to me 'look, you saved my life', because when they operated on him his appendix was almost ready to go, like full blown.

"People out here, a lot of them don't really want doctors. They're self-sufficient."

The Manilla Multipurpose Service and HealthOne combined are barely big enough to contain Dr Igbenije's infectious belly laugh and the trained rural generalist has already become a fixture of the town in just his second month.

The African-born GP grew up in Abavo, near Agbor, which he compared to Quirindi and Tamworth.

Since he moved to Australia to study in 2010, he has lived and worked in Sydney and Melbourne, but had been thinking about moving rural for a while, he said.

It was all cinched when his wife, a nurse, fell in love with the Tamworth area.

"My boys are happy going to St Nick's primary school. For now I think it's going to be a long stay, because the boys kind of feel they're country boys. When we visit Sydney for holiday they go like, okay, well it's fun but dad, when are we going back?"

Dr Igbenije will serve as a full-time general practitioner at Manilla HealthOne and will also provide on call cover for Manilla Hospital, where he will be able to admit and manage patients and residents.

He moved from a visiting medical officer role at Quirindi Hospital and its HealthOne clinic, where he had been based since 2017.

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