Out of tragedy comes hope

Out of a double tragedy that claimed the lives of a mother and her newborn baby comes the prospect of saving many little lives.

Aidan McCabe’s life was “wiped out” when his wife Tania and one of their twins, Zach, died at childbirth in Mar 2007.

The second twin, Adam, born at 27 weeks and weighing just 2lb 10oz, spent the next three months fighting for his life before pulling through.

Despite this tragedy, followed by a High Court case against the HSE, Aidan, a Garda sergeant, managed to set up a charity to raise funds for life-saving equipment for premature babies.

The charity, established with the support of his family, has raised €100,000 — enough to pay for two state-of-the-art incubators in two special care baby units. One will go to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda where Tania and Zach died, and staff struggled to save Adam. The other incubator will go to Holles Street Maternity Hospital in Dublin where Adam was transferred to and even-tually left a healthy baby.

“This here,” said Aidan pointing to one of the gleaming machines, “is to some extent saying thank you to the two units and turn a negative into a positive and do it in Tania’s name, for whoever is sitting with their pre-term babies, hoping they are going to be all right, and hopefully save lives.”

He was speaking at an event at Garda Headquarters attended by Commissioner Martin Callinan and Miriam O’Callaghan, patron of the Tania McCabe Foundation.

On Mar 8, 2007, the twins were born by Caesarean section at 27 weeks. Zach died hours later and the next day, Tania, aged 34, died following a haemorrhage.

Tania had been admitted to Our Lady’s Hospital on Mar 6 after her waters broke and was discharged only to be admitted the next day in labour.

Aidan took a case against the HSE and consultant obstetrician Shane Higgins for negligence in failing to diagnose properly his wife’s waters had broken, wrongfully discharging her from hospital, and not diagnosing that she was in septic shock when readmitted. In Apr 2011, the HSE apologised in the High Court.

Aidan, who has another son, Ben, 8, said the tragedy ripped his life apart: “You have your hopes and your dreams, you build towards it. Basically that’s all wiped out. Your world is turned upside down, hopes and expectations for the future are just gone.”

He said he gathered strength from his children: “The kids kind of inspire you. You have to stay strong for them, they respond to what you do. If you can deal with it, they can deal with it.”

Adam, 5, was the centre of attention at the launch yesterday, a bundle of energy and joy. As his grandad Philip spoke, followed by Mr Callinan and Ms O’Callaghan, Adam bobbed up and down on his dad’s lap.

For Aidan, supported by his partner Martha, it’s all about his children and Tania’s memory: “If I have only one thing to do in life is to make sure when they grow up they are going to be young adults their mum would be proud of. If I can do that, that’s an achievement.”