Coroner in tears over death of girl whose parents considered medicine to be witchcraft
A paediatrician had earlier told the inquest her warnings about Elizabeth Struhs went unheeded by child protection authorities.
A coroner has broken down in tears after hearing from the sister of a girl who died after her insulin was withheld by her fundamentalist parents who believed medicine was a form of witchcraft.
Having been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, Elizabeth Struhs was aged eight when she died in 2022 at her family’s home near Toowoomba, Queensland.
Her parents and other members of an extremist church group, who called themselves “the Saints”, had gathered around her to pray to God as she lay dying.
Days earlier, her father had agreed to stop administering insulin for her type 1 diabetes in line with the Saints’ belief that modern medicine was witchcraft and that divine healing would work instead.
