A fake doctor is on the run after a patient died hours after receiving an injection from the bogus medic, authorities say.

Phoeun Vankea, 33, disappeared from Odong district in Kampong Speu province yesterday morning after delivering a drug intravenously to Phoun Thea, a 33-year-old farmer, according to Captain Keo Phoeung, deputy chief of Odong district police.

“The victim’s wife brought him to the doctor’s clinic in Champou Proek commune around midnight on Saturday after he complained of fatigue,” Phoeung said. “Vankea injected the patient, who relaxed a bit, but after arriving home about 20 minutes later, he reacted badly to the drug, and the man’s wife asked the medic to come out.”

When Vankea saw the victim, he said he was weak because he had suffered a heart attack, but claimed this was not caused by the injection, Phoeung added.

The doctor then told the farmer’s wife to wait while he fetched a serum from his clinic, but he never returned.

“The victim died about four hours later, after his wife waited for the serum, instead of taking her husband directly to hospital,” Phoeung said.

Police discovered Vankea had been using a fake Ministry of Health operating licence after they searched his clinic, which doubled as his home, said Lieutenant Colonel Duong Chamroeun, of the penal police office in Kampong Speu province.

He added that the police planned to cooperate with the provincial health department to rigorously inspect all private clinics, and urged locals to take sick relatives to state hospitals and health centres.