A coroner investigating the deaths of three Indigenous women with rheumatic heart disease has found health systems in a remote Queensland community failed.
The deaths within 18 months of one another sparked an inquest into what would otherwise be considered natural cause deaths, coroner Nerida Wilson said in her findings handed down in Cairns on June 30.
The three women—Yvette Booth, referred to as Betty, Adele Sandy, known as Ms Sandy and Shakaya George, or Kaya—lived in Doomadgee, about 630 km northwest of Mount Isa, which is home to about 1400 people.
Eighteen-year-old Betty died in September 2019, while Ms Sandy was 37 when she died in May 2020. …