When Liam and Torie Finnane welcomed their third child, Maisie, into the world, neither could have imagined how that world was about to change.
The day after leaving the hospital in Orange, in central western New South Wales, Maisie started to experience breathing difficulties, so her worried parents rushed her back to hospital.
Later that night, Torie developed a headache that gradually worsened to the point where she lost the ability to speak.
A day later, in the intensive care unit of the hospital where she had worked as a midwife safely delivering other women's babies, the 34-year-old mum of three died.
As Mr Finnane and the rest of the family were reeling from Torie's sudden death, doctors informed him that there was a possibility the infection had entered Maisie's spinal fluid.
The procedure that was needed to treat the newborn had to be performed at a hospital in Sydney.
Little Maisie had to be separated from her father and flown to Sydney.
"Given what we'd just been through, obviously I just wanted her to be OK," Mr Finnane said.
Maisie was accompanied by her aunt, Gen O'Hare, who, along with one of her uncles, stayed by her side in Sydney while she received treatment.
Now, a happy and adventurous one-year-old, Maisie is back at home in Orange with her dad, six-year-old brother Ollie, and four-year-old sister Elke.
Legacy for Torie
The anguish of losing Torie in such devastating circumstances has inspired her husband, brother and sister to establish the Torie Finnane Foundation.
The aim of the foundation is to provide more resources and access to training for maternity staff at the Orange Hospital.
"The plan is for midwives and special care nurses to spend a month down in [Sydney] hospitals learning from very experienced obstetricians and specialised nurses … and then bring those skills back into regional areas where they can implement them and teach other people."
The Orange Hospital is now finalising the program with the Royal Women's Hospital in Sydney, and hopes the first placement can start in March 2022.
"That is a really, really unique and privileged situation to be in because you don't have to actually go and get a job in Sydney," Orange Hospital general manager Catherine Nowlan said.
"Yet you get to work in that environment and receive the specialist skills and knowledge that they can impart to our teams.
"Investing in them means we invest in patient safety and clinical care in our community."
The foundation is initially focusing its efforts on the Orange Hospital, where Torie worked as a midwife and gave birth to Maisie, but wants to improve maternity services across NSW.
"Orange is a big regional centre and we pull from a big geographical area and the staff in the special care nursery here were fantastic and we've got nothing but praise from our particular situation," Mr Finnane said.
"But if you compare the special care nursery in Orange to Royal Women's in Randwick for example, those are specialised NICCU [newborn and infant critical care unit] staff who only work in the NICCU."
A series of events is being planned to start raising money to fund the placement program.
