Pakistani girl shot in head by Taliban leaves hospital
Malala Yousafzai, 15, was targeted for backing women’s rights to education in her home country and was later flown to Britain for specialist care.
Doctors have been delighted with her recovery which will continue at her family’s temporary home in the west midlands.
Malala left the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham after doctors decided she was well enough to be treated as an outpatient.
She will visit the hospital regularly to attend clinical appointments and is due to return for cranial reconstructive surgery in the next few weeks.
Dave Rosser, medical director at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Malala is a strong young woman and has worked hard with the people caring for her to make excellent progress in her recovery.
“Following discussions with Malala and her medical team, we decided that she would benefit from being at home with her parents and two brothers.
“She will return to the hospital as an outpatient and our therapies team will continue to work with her at home to supervise her onward care.”
Malala left hospital as it emerged that she was likely to secure permanent residence in England after her father was granted a job with the Pakistani consulate in Birmingham.
Ziauddin Yousafzai has been appointed education attache for three years, with the option of an extension for two years.
He and his daughter have had threats made against their lives by the Taliban since the shooting.
The Pakistani High Commission’s decision makes it more likely Malala and her family will remain in Britain long term.
The appointment came after Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari visited Malala and her father in hospital on Dec 8.
Zardari was said to have assured Yousafzai the Pakistani government would pay for Malala’s treatment and all the family’s needs while in Britain.
The teenager, from the town of Mingora in the Swat district of Pakistan, was pictured embracing medical staff as she walked out of hospital.
Over the past couple of weeks she has taken regular “home leave” to spend time with her father, mother Toorpekai and younger brothers, Khushal and Atul.
Her lengthy ordeal began when she was severely injured in a school bus shooting on Oct 9.
She received immediate treatment in Pakistan where surgeons removed a bullet which entered just above her left eye and ran along her jaw, grazing her brain.
The teenager was flown to the UK and admitted to the hospital on Oct 15.
She was pictured in November sitting up in her bed reading cards and messages from supporters.
The shooting drew widespread international condemnation. She has become an internationally recognised symbol of resistance to the Taliban’s efforts to deny women education and other rights. More than 250,000 people have signed online petitions calling for her to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
