Fundraising lunch - Has Ended

The event includes a drink on arrival, lunch, a bar available to purchase drinks and a raffle with wonderful prizes donated by local businesses. Geoff and Genevieve O’Hare from the Torie Finnane Foundation will be present and Geoff, Torie’s brother, will speak about the work of the Foundation and her legacy.

About the Torie Finnane Foundation

Torie Finnane was a much-loved midwife who tragically passed away in December 2020 at the age of 34 just three days after giving birth to her third child Maisie in Orange, NSW. It’s important to note that Torie passed away from a sudden case of bacterial meningitis which was unrelated to the birth of Maisie. Maisie being also unwell was subsequently transferred to Sydney where she spent two weeks in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the Royal Hospital for Women, Randwick, before returning home to her father, Liam, and older siblings, Ollie and Elke, in Orange.

For Torie’s family, it seemed only fitting that out of such a tragedy they could honour her by establishing the Torie Finnane Foundation for Women & Babies to create an ongoing legacy in her name.

The TFF will see the ongoing development of the city-country connection that Torie cherished, working together to achieve great things for maternity services in regional communities.

The TFF endeavours to improve maternity services in regional New South Wales through the provision of professional development opportunities, and by assisting with the purchase of much needed equipment.

It also strives to provide opportunities for regionally based Midwives, Nurses and Special Care Nursery staff to undertake further training programs/courses and exchanges with metropolitan, tertiary hospitals to further develop their skills. These skills will then be brought back where they will be utilised in the regional hospital, thereby improving regional maternity services which will be greatly beneficial to the community.

In addition to the professional development of staff and provision of equipment, the TFF objectives are:

To reduce the instances of mothers being transferred to larger hospitals if they are having a high-risk birth.

To reduce the instances of newborn babies being transferred to larger hospitals if they are having complications post-delivery.

To allow babies to discharge earlier from metropolitan hospitals due to a higher level of care being provided in the regional hospital. This will allow the baby to return to its community, closer to family and thereby reduce some of the stresses experienced by families during this time.