What is more important, earning enough money or being in your dream job?

My mother is in this position right now. She is on WorkCover (the Australian version of her employer paying her a certain amount because she was injured while at her job a few years ago). Her dream was to be a midwife. She can no longer perform the clinical tasks involved because she needed back surgery, but she has stayed working in the hospital doing various administrative tasks, still working with pregnant women where she can.

She has spent a long time now being very involved in a program to involve Aboriginal women in midwifery, but the government has half cancelled, half rearranged it and her role is no longer needed. Since she is still on WorkCover, and it's a public hospital, they need to give her a new job in the public sector somewhere. WorkCover operates under the principle that the victim of the injury must be paid the same amount they were getting paid before the injury.

She could either fight to stay in the hospital and work with out-patients, but this is a job where she would earn 2/3rds of what she is earning now. WorkCover would fight to put her in a higher paying job because that is what she is supposed to do under the scheme. This is as close she can get to doing her dream work of working as a midwife. However, the pay cut would mean we can only pay back our mortgage at the minimum rate, would be living paycheck to paycheck, and would put a lot of pressure on dad (who owns his own business) to earn enough money as well.

Or, she could let WorkCover find her different work within the public sector, so she would stay on the same wage and wouldn't have to stress about money so much, we could still afford a few extra things like going out to dinner once a week, and dad would not be pressured to work more when really he wants to work a bit less (he has worked incredibly hard, 6-7 days a week for the past 20 years). If she did this, she would be giving up her dream completely and may end up being put in a job she hates.

What would you do?