A NURSE is under investigation in Russia after posting pictures online mocking dying patients and boasting: "We tie them to beds."
Her images highlight a disturbing trend of medical staff using social media to abuse the sick, vulnerable and elderly.
The latest case involves nurse Anna Kim, who used cruel expletives to portray her elderly patients as filthy and disgusting.
She also alleged doctors in her hospital in Sakhalin, in Russia's east, "only help people they want to help".
She said: "If they don't want to help, you are doomed. They don't give a ****."
Ms Kim - who has not been sacked for her posts and outbursts - posed with an elderly female patient who was "gravely ill" in intensive care.
A hospital chief's daughter posted a picture of herself with a surgeon during a breast operation.
She said: "Some patients might go out of their minds …. we tie them to beds. But it's okay, this is life."
Concern is growing in Russia over similar pictures posted by nurses and doctors which are said to highlight abuses in the heath system.
A male gynaecologist in Syktyvkar, central Russia, posed with a patient during what seemed to be an intimate examination or medical procedure.
In Alexandrov, 100km northeast of Moscow, two intensive care nurses posed for pictures throwing hoops on the legs of an unconscious female patient.
The same pair - identified as Tatiana Katayeva and Marina Shibanova - were shown pretending to drink blood given by donors.
They were also seen fooling around on a hospital staircase, explaining: "It was all for a joke so that our profession doesn't look so sad.
"We work in intensive care … we wanted to show that medical personnel haven't lost their sense of humour and that they can behave like humans."
The two were given an official warning but allowed to continue in their jobs.
In Perm, central Russia, a 22-year-old medical student, the daughter of a hospital chief, posed with a colleague seconds after a breast implant surgery.
A fresh cut is seen on the patient after the implants were put in. The student's friends "liked" the picture after she posted it online.
Meanwhile in Demidovskaya hospital in Nizhni Tagil, central Russia, a nurse posed alongside a surgeon as their helpless patient lay under anaesthetic moments after a surgical cut had been made on his body.
It caused a scandal in Russia but the pair kept their jobs.
And back in 2014, in Kazan, central Russia, nurse Gulnaz Yalalova, then 20, posed with a broad smile while holding a removed spleen.
She posted it on social media alongside an image of herself in a bikini. She was rebuked for "immaturity".
The recent case involving Ms Kim was at Sakhalin Regional Clinical Hospital.
A senior medic said: "Such violation of ethical norms showed that the person who did this requires professional psychiatric help."
There were even claims she was "drunk on duty" when the pictures were taken.
She has not been fired while a probe is underway.
A local health ministry spokesman said: "An internal investigation has been carried out into the unacceptable, unethical behaviour of a nurse."
Local health minister Alexey Pak said he "harshly condemned" her behaviour.
He said: "Helpless people on life support became victims of her unceremonious filming."
