An experienced doctor was caught on camera twice viciously beating a heart patient as he lay tied to an intensive care bed.

The defenceless patient died soon afterwards and the medic, Andrey Votyakov, blamed his frenzied attack on exhaustion after a busy 24-hour shift.

Police are now probing the Russian doctor – who previous had an unblemished record – for his cruel assault on the middle-aged man soon after he underwent surgery at a hospital in Perm, in the Urals.

The shocking 30-second video clearly shows a verbal argument between a doctor and the tethered patient at the Federal Cardo-Surgery Centre in the industrial city.

Then the doctor hits out, striking the patient first on the head and soon afterwards in the area of his heart.

He was evidently unaware that his brutal attack – which has now cost him his job – was being filmed on a camera focused on the patient’s bed.

‘It was a hard day after a 24 hour shift,’ claimed Votyakov, chief of the prestigious hospital’s anaesthesiology and intensive care department, after the footage went viral on the Russian web.

‘As soon as I came into the room with my team he started to call me various derogative names.  And I just got blown away by it.
‘We had spent so much time with his very complicated case to help him recover and he said not a single word of gratitude.

‘And then the chronic tiredness added to it. I got carried away, and I punched him several times at the presence of my colleagues.’

The camera does not show any other doctors or nurses seeking to intervene.

‘We continued the treatment after the incident, but sadly the patient died.

‘I am very sorry for what happened and I want to apologise first of all to the patient himself and his family.’

The incident was in February this year but the footage was only recently made public.

The patient was a man aged ‘over 45’ from Kirov region. There has been no comment so far from the patient’s family.

Votyakov’s boss, Sergey Sukhanov, announced today that he was firing the violent medic.

There were predictions that the doctor would face jail and ruin over his attack, though it is so far unclear what charges he may face.