News: Medical interns, students and professionals stage protests in multiple cities
Mahlet Fasil
Addis Abeba, April 22/2019 – Medical interns, students and professionals stage protests in multiple cities and university campuses against mistreatment, long working hours, low salaries and on the job safety, among others.
Accordingly, there were protest demonstrations today by medical interns and students of Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital and St Paul General Specialized Hospital in Addis Abeba. Other protests have also happened in Gonder University campus, in Amhara regional state.
Today’s protest demonstration happened after several interns and last year medical students in Arsi University, Assela city, 175 km south east of Addis Abeba, were injured on Thursday April 17 by security forces who forcibly dispersed the students while staging peaceful demonstrations. They were demanding for better teaching-learning environment, on the job safety, and against a non-stop 36 working hours.
Reacting to the incident in Assela, Dr. Amir Aman, minister of health tweeted on April 18 that “Medical professionals have the right to raise their questions peacefully. A team drawn from relevant stakeholders was present and has conducted discussions about the damage sustained and questions raised by Arsi University medical interns.”
According to a student of the university, the discussions did indeed take place and the team have reached an agreement with the students that their concerns will be “conveyed to appropriate authorities and solutions would be sought in due time.”
Today’s protesters from Tikur Anbessa specialized Hospital have denounced the attack on Arsi University students and asked for those responsible to be held accountable. AS
