PSI supports the Ethiopian Health Professionals Movement in their struggle for decent work, including adequate remuneration, improved working conditions and social dialogue. We also demand the immediate and unconditional release of Dr. Daniel Fentaneh and all health workers arrested for exercising their fundamental rights.

His arrest, along with the detention of many other health workers over the past weeks, is an attack on the right of all workers in Ethiopia to organize, speak out, and to demand their rights.

The workers’ grievances are clear and legitimate: staffing shortages, undignified pay that cannot feed a family, and the daily collapse of the public health system.

PSI calls on the Ethiopian government to dialogue with the health workers. And demand an end to the crackdown on organized workers, especially voices in the health sector.

We ask that the Ethiopian government stands by its commitments to the people of Ethiopia as expressed in its ratification of the ILO Convention.

The government must stop treating its health workers as enemies.

Instead of targeting workers, the Ethiopian government must focus its energy where it is truly needed: invest in public health, enter honest negotiations, and meet the just demands of the health workforce.