An elected village panchayat member from CPI(M) has died when she preferred treatment from quack losing faith on government health services in the bordering sub-division of Gandacharra in the northern district of Dhalai here in Tripura.

According to the information, the elected member of a local village panchayat identified as Patirung Tripura was attacked by diarrhea. But instead of going to the doctors she preferred a quack and started taking treatment. At last, she died yesterday. A family member of her identified as Jibonjoy Tripura informed, "We never knock the doctors for such illness. Because the doctors cannot heal and our hard-earned money gets lost. So, Patirung went to a quack".

The dominance of superstition and lack of faith on government health services once again became evident in this case. A doctor of Gandacharra Sub-divisional Hospital informed on the condition of anonymity, "Even if you forcibly take them to hospital they simply flee and never take medicine. And it is simply due to the lack of proper education". But why after long leftist rule of almost three decades education remained out of reach from remote hamlets, became the question here.