When Gleena Gilbert left Bermuda in 1954 to attend nursing school in Britain, she would have known that King Edward VII Memorial Hospital did not hire Black nurses.

That did not stop her and countless other Black Bermudians from venturing overseas to train to become registered nurses.

Ms Gilbert, who has died at age 91, was among the first generation of Black Bermudian women who headed to Britain for nurses training during the late 1940s and 1950s.

She graduated as a State Registered Nurse in 1957, qualified as a State Certified Midwife in 1958 and became a Queen’s Nurse in 1962.

She was the third Bermudian to become a Queen’s Nurse, after Lorraine Dyer Bizek, who received the honour in 1945, and Clare Harford, Ms Gilbert’s cousin, who earned the distinction in 1961.

Being a Queen’s Nurse is a significant achievement, but Black leaders, beginning with E.F. Gordon in 1924, complained that the British qualification in district nursing had been put in place only to block the employment prospects of Black Bermudian nurses, the majority of whom up until the 1940s trained in the United States.

Ms Gilbert, from Somerset, was the daughter of Marjorie and Samuel Thomas Gilbert. She attended school at West End Primary and Sandys Secondary.

She and her cousin, Clare Harford, received their introduction to nursing at the Children’s Convalescent Hospital (now Lefroy House) on Ireland Island.

They worked there for a year, then left Bermuda together to train at the same hospital nursing school in Staffordshire.

In 1958, a year after they qualified as SRNs, the ban against the hiring of Black nurses was lifted at KEMH.

In 1962, after working at Hammersmith Hospital in London — and travelling extensively in Europe when on holiday — Ms Gilbert returned home and joined the staff of KEMH.

Interviewed by the Bermuda Recorder, Ms Gilbert said she was “extremely glad” to be back in Bermuda, although she would miss London’s cosmopolitan atmosphere.

She spoke of the many changes and improvements that had taken place at KEMH and of the “nice, friendly atmosphere” that prevailed there.

But in 1964, she left Bermuda to work at New York’s Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. This was during a time when British-trained nurses were being heavily recruited by US hospitals.

When interviewed in 2021 for the film Healthcare Heroines: Black Bermudian Nurses and the Struggle for Equality, Ms Gilbert’s sister, Curtalene Wilson, said she left Bermuda because there was “a lot of discrimination” at KEMH.

“She wasn’t going to get ahead,” Mrs Wilson said.

Gleena Gilbert would spend the rest of her working life at Columbia Presbyterian, where she became an assistant head nurse. Cousin-in-law Hattieann Gilbert said she visited Bermuda regularly over the years.

About ten years ago, because of ill health, she returned to Bermuda permanently to be closer to her family. She was a resident at Serenity Gardens Nursing Home in Warwick, where she died on August 31.

Gleena Gilbert’s closest relatives were her first cousin, Weldon Gilbert, Hattieann’s husband, and her sister, Curtalene, who lived in California. Both died unexpectedly, Mr Gilbert in 2021 and Mrs Wilson last November.

Ms Gilbert was predeceased also by her brother, Minton, and her cousin, Clare Harford, and is survived by nieces Cheryl Turner and Sharna McMillan, great-nieces and great-nephews.

A graveside service was held at St James Church cemetery, Sandys, on September 13.

Gleena Senora Gilbert, the third Bermudian to become a Queen’s Nurse, was born on November 11, 1931. She died on August 31, 2023, aged 91

• Meredith Ebbin was principal researcher for the film Healthcare Heroines: Black Bermudian Nurses and the Struggle for Equality