According to reports, a nurse in Yekaterinburg taped babies' mouths shut so that their crying did not "bother her during work." Prosecutors are investigating the incidents, and medical staff members now face possible negligence charges.
"The chief doctor in the Yekaterinburg city hospital, where the cases of cruel treatment were uncovered, has been reprimanded," the city's health department said. "The nurse who dealt with the babies has been suspended."
The complaint came from a woman whose baby was being treated at the hospital. She witnessed the cruel practice, which she said could have led to suffocation, in the abandoned babies' ward and contacted human rights officials.
In comments televised Monday evening, the chief doctor defended her low-paid staff, saying there was nothing harmful in the practice, which was briefly applied to prevent babies from spitting out pacifiers and to spare nurses in a heavily understaffed hospital the need to pick them up and wash them all the time.
The health department has ordered the heads of children's hospitals in the city to step up control over their medical staff.
