This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A Russian doctor has been captured on video punching a patient who later died, prompting authorities to open a criminal investigation.

The footage, which was broadcast on state television and widely shared online, shows the violent incident at a hospital in Belgorod, 350 miles south-west of Moscow.

The surgeon, named as Ilya Zelendinov, can be seen bursting into a consulting room and grabbing 56-year-old Yevgeny Bakhtin. The shirtless patient had earlier kicked a nurse during a procedure, according to investigators.

Zelendinov asks Bakhtin: “Why did you touch the nurse?” He then pushes him through a doorway, and when the patient returns to the room, he punches him in the face, sending him toppling backwards onto the floor.

The doctor then repeatedly punches another man who had accompanied Bakhtin. Minutes later nursing staff realise that Bakhtin is lying motionless and unsuccessfully attempt to revive him.

“The cause of death of the victim was trauma to the skull and brain from hitting the back of the head on the hard surface of the floor,” Belgorod’s investigative committee said. Zelendinov was suspected of causing death through negligence and could be jailed for up to two years.

The relatively minor charge reflected that there were “no grounds to say that the doctor wanted to murder the patient”, investigators said. “If the victim had stayed on his feet or hit his head on a less hard surface, the consequences would not have been so critical.”

Zelendinov has been sacked but was not in custody.

The video was timestamped 29 December, prompting questions as to why the investigation was only announced on Saturday after the footage was broadcast. The committee said the investigation was opened the day after the incident, when the hospital reported the death and a postmortem revealed a head injury had caused the patient’s death.

The Russian health minister, Veronika Skvortsova, has ordered the state health watchdog to investigate, state television reported.

Patients have little recourse to compensation for medical errors in Russia. Last year two people shot dead doctors they believed had made mistakes during treatment. Both then killed themselves.