Peshawar doctor appeals to Malala to help build neurosurgery hospital in KP

PESHAWAR: The doctor who performed the initial surgery on Malala Yousafzai after she was attacked in Mingora in 2012 has appealed to the Nobel laureate to consider building a neurosurgery hospital in her home province, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, to save those in need of similar treatment.

Talking to Geo News, Peshawar Lady Reading Hospital's surgeon Dr Mumtaz Ali said many lives would be saved if the province has a hospital where brain injuries could be treated. 

He believed Malala could raise funds for the major project in the memory of the terrorist occupation of her hometown in Mingora, Swat and the subsequent attack on her.

He added a neurosurgery hospital in KP would be a big service to the nation.

Speaking about Malala’s first trip to Pakistan after the terrorist attack on her recently, the doctor said he was happy she came home but expressed disappointment over her not going to meet him. 

He accepted that she was either not told about him or could not be able to go due to security concerns.

Nevertheless, the doctor said the entire nation was proud of Malala for winning the Nobel peace prize.

Dr Mumtaz was the first doctor to operate on Malala at Combined Military Hospital in Peshawar where he was called in from Lady Reading Hospital. According to the doctor, Malala was unconscious when he saw her and had a severe head injury.

She looked pale and the CT scan showed the left part of the brain was severely injured, the doctor had said in an earlier interview. 

Later that night, the doctor said he and a senior neurosurgeon and a brigadier at CMH treated her, two days after which she was sent abroad for further treatment.

Malala had fought for years for the right of girls to education in her home region in Pakistan. 

She was shot her in the head by a Taliban gunman on a school bus in October 2012 for defending her right to attend school.