Malala to get titanium plate in skull
UK: British doctors said Wednesday they will insert a titanium plate
in the skull of Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai to repair a hole
left when the Taliban shot her for campaigning for girls education.
Surgeons at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in the central English city of
Birmingham plan to carry out the operation to protect the 15-year-old’s
brain within the next 10 days.
“This is, very simply speaking, putting a custom-made titanium plate
over the deficit in her skull, primarily to offer physical protection to
her brain in the same way as a normal skull would,” the hospital’s
medical director Dave Rosser said.
Malala, who was attacked in Pakistan’s Swat Valley last October as
she travelled on a bus to school, has become an internationally
recognised symbol of opposition to the Taliban’s drive to deny women
education.
Doctors say the bullet fired at point blank range by a Taliban gunman
grazed her brain and travelled through her head and neck before lodging
in her left shoulder.
The attack caused her to be completely deaf in her left ear, so
surgeons will also insert an electronic device into the ear that should
help her hearing return to near-normal levels within 18 months.
Surgeons in Pakistan who were the first to treat the teenager before
she was brought to Britain inserted the missing section of her skull
into her abdomen, but it had eventually been decided not to use the
bone.
“The safest way to store that bone, to keep it sterile and healthy,
is in the patient’s body, so they will make an incision in the skin and
tuck it into the abdomen,” Rosser said at a press conference, explaining
the procedure.
“Surgeons in consultation with Malala have decided that fitting this
titanium plate is a better long-term procedure than trying to re-implant
the bone after such a long period of time.” The piece of skull will be
removed, sterilised and -- if she wants it -- given to Malala as a
“souvenir”, Rosser added.
Malala was temporarily discharged by the hospital on January 4 and is
currently staying in Birmingham with her parents and siblings, who have
joined her in England.
Her father has been given a job as education attache at Pakistan’s
consulate in Birmingham, a city with a large Pakistani community.
Rosser said Malala was a “remarkable young lady” and despite her
ordeal she was determined to continue speaking out for girls’ right to
education.
“She is very lively, she has a great sense of humour,” he said. “She
is not naive at all about what happened to her and the situation she is
looking forward to in terms of being a high-profile person, and
potentially a high-profile target.
“But she remains incredibly cheerful, incredibly determined and
incredibly determined to continue to speak for her cause.”
The hospital in Birmingham was chosen for Malala’s treatment because
it has vast experience of treating gunshot injuries sustained by British
soldiers in Afghanistan.
Rosser said although specialists in Britain had more experience of
reconstructive surgery than their Pakistani counterparts, Malala owed
her life to the surgeons in Pakistan. “There is no doubt that the
surgery performed in Pakistan was life-saving,” he said.
AFP |