Russian investigators have started a criminal investigation into the alleged cruel treatment of an abandoned baby in a Novosibirsk hospital, after a chilling video was leaked on the internet, causing outrage among viewers.
The video that triggered the probe was posted over the weekend on Russias most popular social network Vkontakte, and it soon was reposted on other social networks, news agencies and mass media, gathering more comments.
The creator of the video explained that the incident allegedly took place in the Novosibirsk Hospital No 4. One of the nurses came to carry out an electrocardiogram on a patient, and subsequently went into an adjoining room, where she “for some reason started tossing around a baby in its crib.”
The woman who uploaded the footage also wrote that she could hear the baby constantly crying, as well as something that sounded like slaps. She also reported that the child was an eight-month-old girl, who had been abandoned by her parents.
On Monday, the Russian federal agency responsible for serious crime, the Investigative Committee, initiated a criminal investigation into the incident on charges of “providing services unsafe for clients health or lives.” The offence is punishable by up to six years behind bars in cases when victims are younger than six.
“In April 2018, one of the hospitals patients recorded with her mobile-phone camera how a medical worker, while making an examination of a baby girl, was treating her in a cruel way,” the regional directorate of the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
Investigators are currently working to establish all details of the incident.
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