An inquest into the death of eight-year-old Elizabeth Struhs heard that Queensland child protection staff failed to prioritize her case due to high workloads and potentially misleading assumptions about her family circumstances.
Struhs died in 2022 after her religious parents denied her insulin treatment. During the coroner's court proceedings, testimony revealed that the case worker assigned to Struhs was "very busy" and did not work the case intensively or prioritize it, according to reporting by The Guardian.
The coroner also heard evidence suggesting the case worker may have been "overly influenced" by Struhs' family's "upper class home" presentation. This apparent bias led the worker to place other cases believed to carry more immediate risk ahead of Struhs' case for investigation and monitoring.
The inquest indicates systemic failures in child protection oversight. The combination of resource constraints and flawed risk assessment contributed to the oversight of a child whose case ultimately proved fatal. The coroner's investigation has focused on how a child in an affluent household came to be deprioritized within the protection system, despite apparent warning signs warranting intervention.