Borkena
Toronto – Ethiopian health professionals have declared an indefinite nationwide full strike starting Monday, abandoning their previous partial strike after accusing the government of ignoring their demands while escalating intimidation tactics against medical workers. The decision follows weeks of failed call for the government to address dire working conditions exacerbated by Ethiopia’s economic crisis.
The Ethiopian Health Professionals Movement (EHPM), a coalition representing doctors, nurses, and allied health workers, circulated an “Urgent Call to Action” on social media, condemning what they describe as the government’s “campaign of suppression.” The statement alleges authorities have responded to peaceful wage demands with arbitrary arrests, threats, and workplace harassment.
For three days this week, medical staff maintained a partial strike, continuing emergency and lifesaving services as a goodwill gesture while demanding the government to address their plight. Their demands center on livable wages amid hyperinflation and Ethiopian hyper depreciation, which has left many professionals unable to afford basic necessities. Over 17,000 signatures were collected in a petition highlighting deplorable living conditions.
Yet the government’s only formal response came Thursday evening. And it is aa public warning declaring the planned strike “illegal.” Simultaneously, social media reports and eyewitness accounts suggest security forces have detained dozens of health workers in Addis Ababa and regional cities. Rights groups, including Amnesty International, have called for the immediate release of those arrested, warning that targeting essential workers during a healthcare crisis violates international norms.
Undeterred, the EHPM’s message to colleagues struck a defiant tone. “For the past three days, we conducted a partial strike to minimize public disruption, hoping the authorities would finally engage with our demands. Yet, they have refused to even acknowledge our suffering—let alone address the starvation wages, unaffordable living costs, and our inability to provide for our families or secure basic necessities,” the statement read.
“Do not fear the consequences of this fight. We stand for our survival, dignity, profession, and the future of healthcare. United, we are unstoppable. Reject any attempts to divide us—solidarity is our strength. Now is the time. Together, we prevail,” the a call of action statement shared on Facebook declared, accompanied by hashtags like #NowOrNever and #HealthcareJustice.
The strike’s ripple effects could prove catastrophic for Ethiopia’s overburdened hospitals, where doctors already manage sparse resources and chronic shortages. With no contingency plan announced, fears grow that vulnerable patients—particularly in rural areas—will bear the brunt of the shutdown.
Information on the series of actions the movement announced is available here
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The real victims of this strike will be those patients who are in dire need of life saving medical care. They will die when they could have been saved because the hospitals and clinics have shuttered on them. Both sides have to come together and iron the issues out peacefully and amicably. The regime has to stop arresting peaceful strikers. That has been its bad habits lately. The strikers should keep the ailing and suffering patients in mind and head to the negotiating table.
Healthcare professionals and hospital staff have been targets of killings. Mugging and kidnapping by hoodlums roaming the wild of both Oromia and Amhara regions for more than 4 years now. This is happening when the citizens of that country are being besieged by all kinds of preventable but deadly diseases and epidemics. We hear cholera raging both in Oromia and Amhara regions. There were reports of the deadly Anthrax killing people. Malaria seems to have colonized the entire country. AIDS is spreading among the young generation, the future of that country where kings of cop outs are blaming the severance of foreign aid. In the middle of all this nightmare the population size keeps exploding. You hear men who fathered 16 children have nothing to feed them. That is when you should respond with ‘duh!’ Why did you have to multiply like worms when you know you don’t have the resources to feed and house them? Duh is right. What will happen then is Mother Nature will step in and do the survival of the fittest. It will send wars, epidemics and hazardous migration in all directions. The Mediterranean, Red Sea, Bab El-Mandeb, Indian and Atlantic Oceans, the forests of Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and South Africa have become the permanent burial places of young Ethiopians of every ethnic group. This tragedy will only be getting worse as long as the population keeps growing at an explosive pace because there are no enough jobs for the working age citizens. It is a nightmare that will besiege everyone out there. I have not heard any solution to this from these so-called intellectuals among us where very few of them have been touching around the issue but the rest have chosen to feed on the raw emotion of the gullible by slinging terms like Neftegna, Woyane and Oromummaa just to denigrate groups of noble people. So what is it? Speak up!!!
Reminder: There is what is called ≈ “The Essential Services Act” →world-wide → [It applies to health care workers, fire fighters, police, air traffic controllers, etc.]
I. Timing of the Strike: Is it coincidence that this strike came at a time Ethiopia is battling Domestic Proxy Ethnic Warriors [Amara/Oromo/etc.] bent on weakening-and-paralyzing Ethiopia thus paving the way for swift invasion by neighboring Egypt’s Proxies waiting for Egypt’s marching orders?
II). Health Care Professionals’ Cards:
Phase-1:- (i). Present demands in professional manner; (ii). Give government reasonably ample time [usually 3 months → for demand review-consultation-response]; (iii). Take the government to court if no response [or unsatisfactory response] by the deadline.
ELSE→Phase-2:- (i). Unhappy with court’s decision, go to Court of Appeal/Arbitration; (ii). Worst Case Scenario → Work with Rotating Essential Crew in each department. [NB: The pay will be retroactive dating back to the date of complaint deposition.]
III). Government’s Cards:
Phase-1:- (i). Remind the professionals the FREE education they received; (ii). Stress the importance of calling off the strike [since it never changes the outcome]; (iii). Ask each professional union to send its own committee of delegates [since there is no one-fits-all solution]; (iv). Put government’s proposed permanent solutions to each committee; (v). Work with each committee on time frame for phase-by-phase implementation of accord.
ELSE→Phase-2:- (i). Invoke Back-to-Work Legislation; (ii). Take to court for failure to fulfill essential service obligations; (iii). Revoke Professional Practice License of Non-Compliant ones [Temporary or Permanent].