Malala leaves UK hospital

Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai waves to the camera yesterday
as she is discharged from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham
in central England. Photo: AFP

The British hospital treating Malala Yousufzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl shot by the Taliban for campaigning for girls' education, said Friday that she has been temporarily discharged ahead of surgery. Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, central England, said the 15-year-old would stay at her family's temporary English home before undergoing major surgery on her skull in a few weeks. 

"Malala Yousufzai was discharged from Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB) as an inpatient yesterday (3 January 2013) to continue her rehabilitation at her family's temporary home in the West Midlands," its statement said. 

Malala was shot on her school bus by a Taliban hitman in October 2012, in an attack that shocked the world. The bullet grazed her brain coming within centimetres of killing her, and she was airlifted to the specialist Queen Elizabeth Hospital days after the attack in Mingora in Pakistan's northwestern Swat Valley.

"She is still due to be re-admitted in late January or early February to undergo cranial reconstructive surgery as part of her long-term recovery and in the meantime she will visit the hospital regularly to attend clinical appointments," the hospital said. It added that Malala had been regularly leaving the hospital over the past couple of weeks to visit her family at home.