Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 12:48 PM
Team at CMCH claims success
Ludhiana, 20th February, 2013(Shalu Arora and Rector Kathuria):Skull base surgery team involving Neurosurgeons and ENT surgeons at CMCH claims to have conducted a major surgery of a rare brain tumor in a 40 year old female.This 40-year-old housewife has never thought that her difficulty in swallowing and hoarseness of speech can be due to some brain tumor. So when she was investigated for her symptoms it was found that she was having a very rare complex tumor involving skull base region of the brain. Tumor was close to many critical structures of the brain. She was refused surgery at other private institutes and was referred to CMCH for further management. This kind of complex and aggressive tumor requires high level of surgical expertise and teamwork. Skull base team at CMCH, first of its kind in region involving Neurosurgeons, ENT surgeons and Neurointerventionist headed by Dr Sarvpreet Singh Grewal decided to take up the challenge and went ahead with the surgery.
The surgical team comprised of Dr. Sukhdeep Singh Jhawar, assistant professor neurosurgery, Dr. Ashsish Vargesh professor and head ENT, Dr Valsa Abrahem professor and head, Anesthesia. The operation lasted fifteen hours and was successful. Patient improved after surgery and was discharged on 10th day. Dr. Sukhdeep S Jhawar assistant professor neurosurgery, told our reporter that skull base region is the most difficult region of the body to operate. These tumors known as “glomus tumor” are very rare and not seen in day-to-day practice. Operations in this region require high level of surgical expertise, teamwork and institutional back up. This was a one of the first operation of this kind in region. But with recent advances and modernization we are able to do such complex cases at CMCH with our expert team.
02/13/2013 02:05 PM CST Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 1:49 AMSequestration 'Wolf' Eats at Nation's Readiness By Claudette Roulo
American Forces Press ServiceWASHINGTON, Feb. 13, 2013 - "The wolf is at the door," Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter told members of the House Armed Services committee today during testimony on the effects of sequestration – major, across-the-board spending cuts that will take effect March 1 unless Congress finds an alternative.
For 16 months, Carter said, he and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta have used the word "devastating" when describing the potential effects of sequestration on the Defense Department.
"That was then," he said. Now, with sequestration just over two weeks away, the nation faces a readiness crisis, Carter said. "It doesn't take a genius to figure out the consequences of sequester," he added. If sequestration is not averted, on March 1 the department will have to subtract $46 billion from the funds it planned to have available for the rest of this fiscal year, the deputy secretary said.
Compounding the problem of sequestration and its attendant $500 billion in across-the-board defense cuts is the continuing resolution now funding the government in place of a budget, he said.
"The continuing resolution's a different problem," Carter said. Because an appropriations bill was not signed last year, some accounts are underfunded, he explained, while others have a surplus. "There's enough money in the continuing resolution," he added. "It's in the wrong accounts."
In particular, there isn't enough in the operations and maintenance accounts, Carter said. Funding for Afghanistan will be protected, he told the panel, as will that for urgent operational needs and wounded warrior programs. In addition, Carter noted, military personnel expenses have been exempted by the president from sequestration.
But in the long term, Carter told the committee, sequestration will mean the department will be forced to discard the national security strategy it devised last year.
The Defense Department recognizes the role it plays in helping the nation address its fiscal situation, Carter said. "We have already cut $487 billion from our budget plans over the next 10 years," he noted. "I also understand that the taxpayer deserves a careful use of the defense dollar."
But, both a strategic approach to reducing the budget and good use of the taxpayer money are endangered by the chaos of the current situation, Carter said, and the abruptness and size of the cuts.
What's particularly tragic, he said, is that sequestration is not the result of an economic recession or emergency or because discretionary spending cuts are the answer for the nation's fiscal challenges.
"All this is purely the collateral damage of political gridlock," he said, "and for our troops, for the force, the consequences are very real and very personal."
The department will not have enough money to train its service members, Carter said. It will have to furlough a majority of its civilian employees, likely for 22 days between the beginning of April and the end of the year -- the maximum statutory length of time, he said.
"So there's a real human impact here," Carter said. "I'm a presidentially appointed civilian, and I can't be furloughed, but I'm going to give back a fifth of my salary ... at the end of the year, because we're asking all those people who are furloughed to give back a fifth of their salary."
Sequestration's impact also will be felt by industry, Carter said.
"The quality of the weapons produced by our defense industry is second only to the quality of our people in uniform in making our military the greatest in the world," he said. "As such, a technologically vibrant and financially successful defense industry is in the national interest."
But sequestration and other budget uncertainty may make companies less willing to invest in defense, he said.
"The cloud of uncertainty hanging over our nation's defense affairs is already having a lasting effect," Carter said. "Ultimately, the cloud of sequestration needs to be dispelled, and not just moved to the horizon.
"The world is watching," he continued. "Our friends and allies are watching, [as are] potential foes all over the world. And they need to know that we have the political will to implement the defense strategy we need."
Biographies:
Ashton B. Carter
02/12/2013 11:04 AM CST
Urges Delay in Cuts
By Nick Simeone
American Forces Press ServiceWASHINGTON, Feb. 12, 2013 - Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter urged lawmakers today to find a way to avoid billions of dollars in cuts set to take a deep bite out of Pentagon spending in two weeks, saying the nation will face a crisis in military readiness if they take effect.
And if the current budget trend is not corrected over the longer term, Carter told the Senate Armed Services Committee, the military will have to revise its entire defense strategy within the decade and "would not be able to rapidly respond to major crises in the world or be globally positioned to deter our adversaries."
Carter's testimony came as much of official Washington braces for a March 1 deadline in which massive, across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration are set to take effect -- cuts that would remove $46 billion from the Pentagon budget over the remainder of fiscal year 2013, which ends Sept. 30.
The threatened sequester is the outcome of the unresolved dispute between Congress and the White House over how to reduce the nation's debt. The cuts will kick in unless Congress and the White House can agree on equivalent targeted spending cuts and revenue increases.
Carter told lawmakers the threat of the cuts alone already has taken a toll, and he urged Congress to delay them at the very least.
"The cloud of uncertainty hanging over our nation's defense affairs is already having lasting and irreversible effects," he said. And he called the long-term cuts contained in the budget act as "too large, too sustained for us to implement the [defense] strategy that we crafted under the president's guidance just one year ago."
Carter, appearing at the hearing along with Joint Chiefs Chairman Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, representatives of the military branches and the National Guard chief, detailed multiple areas in which the nation's military readiness and security would be affected. He warned that failure by Congress to approve a defense appropriations bill would render the nation's military no longer able to "protect much of which is of value to the country."
The deputy secretary referenced the Defense Department's pre-emptive decision not to move ahead with the scheduled deployment of at least one aircraft carrier. And if the cuts take effect, he added, troops coming back from Afghanistan will lack adequate maintenance and "won't be training in the way their profession requires them to."
Most DOD civilians would be furloughed without pay for a day a week for up to 22 weeks, the Air Force would fly below acceptable readiness standards, the Navy and Marines could see a significant reduction in operations in the Asia-Pacific region, and the Pentagon might not be able to pay all of its TRICARE medical plan bills, Carter told the senators.
"The wolf is at the door," he warned, adding that "allies, partners, friends and potential foes the world over need to know we have the political will to implement the defense strategy we've put forward."
Biographies:
Ashton B. Carter
Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey
01/31/2013 08:03 PM CST Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 7:53 AM
Carter to Discuss Mali, Broader SecurityBy Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press ServicePARIS, Jan. 31, 2013 - On his first trip to France as deputy defense secretary, Ashton B. Carter will meet with military leaders and advisers here tomorrow for talks on topics that include the French-led fight against terrorists in the West African nation of Mali.
France is Carter's first stop on a six-day trip that will include the Munich Security Conference and the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, and afterward visits to military and government leaders in Turkey and Jordan.
Traveling with the deputy defense secretary are several senior defense officials, among them James J. Townsend Jr., deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy.
"The French are putting together their own forces," Townsend told American Forces Press Service, "but with contributions from a lot of other nations, including the Untied States, to help the Mali government bring about some stability and deal with terrorism to the north."
French forces began military operations in Mali on Jan. 11 when they entered the country to help Mali's struggling forces fight back against what one senior defense official described as a "coalescing" over the past year of Islamic extremists in Mali.
Seeking to make the former French colony a sanctuary for their kind, the official said, extremists in Mali form a complex picture of shifting alliances that includes a mix of members of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, along with an offshoot called MUJAO, a French acronym that stands for the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, another group called Ansar al-Din, and "numerous different traffickers of all kinds who have aligned themselves" with AQIM.
"As we go see the French," Townsend said, "the most immediate issues we'll talk about [will include] what's happening in Mali, what French planning is, what their goals are, how it's actually going, and our [and other nations'] participation in helping the French."
Among African nations, Togo, Niger and Chad are contributing to the fight in Mali, as is the African-led International Support Mission to Mali, called AFISMA. The Economic Community of West African States organized this military mission to support Mali, which is an ECOWAS member nation.
Other European nations are helping the French in Mali by airlifting supplies into the country. They include Sweden, Belgium, Spain and others, Townsend said.
This week, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little summarized U.S. contributions to efforts in Mali.
Since Jan. 11 the United States has shared intelligence with the French, he said. On Jan. 21 the U.S. began providing airlift support to the French army and on Jan. 27 began refueling support for French air operations, Little added.
As of Jan. 27, the U.S. Air Force had flown 17 C-17 sorties, moving more than 391 tons of equipment and supplies and nearly 500 French personnel into Bamako, Mali's capital, the press secretary said.
Several refueling missions also have been conducted so far, he added, noting that the United States is in constant consultation with France on their operations in Mali.
The United Nations is also engaged, Townsend said, so the French are working with the U.N Security Council.
And the senior defense official said the European Union has a "quite robust force commitment" -- up to 460 troops at the moment -- to deploy to Bamako for an initial training cycle for Malian forces that will run from April to September.
The goal, both officials say, is to help Malian forces gain the ability to control their own nation and keep it from becoming a safe haven for extremists.
During Carter's meetings here tomorrow, Townsend added, "I think we'll also talk about the broader issues, too, in terms of the implications of all of this," including recent events in Algeria, where Islamist extremists this month stormed a BP gas facility and caused the deaths of hostages and their own militants, ultimately releasing many hundreds of workers and foreigners.
Townsend said he thinks the United States and France will have to discuss how the trans-Atlantic community deals with such events.
"The French are dealing with Mali," he said, "but how will we deal with Syria, with whatever the future might hold there?"
Much instability has arisen from the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States and now from the Arab Spring unrest, the deputy assistant secretary said.
"I think Mali and our French visit shows that we're all in this together," Townsend said, "and we're trying as best we can to help one another deal with this instability, this threat to our security."
The senior defense official said circumstances necessitated a jump-start in Mali by France, but that both countries are keenly concerned about getting to the point of transition there.
"One of the most important points going forward -- and this is also a conversation with the French -- is the point at which there is some kind of handoff back to the African-led force," the official added.
"I think that will be an important transition point as events unfold," she said. "They and we agree this needs to be an African-led process and an African-led approach."
Biographies:
Ashton B. Carter
James J. Townsend Jr.
