In the latest update, Malala Yousafzai, the activist for young women’s education in Pakistan who was shot by the Taliban last week, has been responding well to treatment she’s received at the UK hospital she was recently airlifted to.
Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital director, Dave Rosser, said doctors are impressed by the nerves of the young girl. Some of the doctors now treating her happened to be in Pakistan when she was shot, which provided one of the reasons why the hospital got involved.
The hospital has one of the largest single-floor critical care units for patients suffering gunshot wounds and head injuries. They also receive many of the UK’s soldiers that are injured in military actions abroad.
The director said she had “a comfortable night” last night, and that she is currently stable as specialists prepare to assess the damage done and decide how to further proceed.
Also of note: Malala’s family — her father, mother, and two brothers — are with her in Birmingham, England.
Her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, is an educator who kept his school operational in defiance of the Taliban. There had been talk of his being shot for it, but at no point had he considered the Taliban would open fire on his daughter.
Malala became a symbol of the girls’ education movement well before her shooting, having won Pakistan’s National Peace Award, the first of its kind.
