Lorraine Dyer Bizek
Pioneering Nurse-Midwife; Queen’s Nurse
Born July 10, 1915

Lorraine Dyer Bizek was one of the first Bermudians to venture to the UK for nurse’s training and the first Bermudian to become a Queen’s Nurse. 

Her top-flight credentials as a State Registered Nurse (SRN), State Certified Midwife (SCM) and Queen’s Nurse—in addition to her experience caring for civilian and military casualties during the Second World War—made her one of the most qualified Bermudian nurses of the 1940s and 50s. 

But they counted for nothing in the land of her birth. Denied a position at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital because of her race, she spent her whole working life in the United Kingdom.

Bermuda gets a brand-new hospital—KEMH 
July 5, 1920

King Edward VII Memorial Hospital opened on Point Finger Road, Paget on July 5, 1902.  It replaced the Cottage Hospital on Happy Valley Road, which opened in 1894 as the Island’s first civilian hospital.

KEMH began as a 44-bed institution, 32 public beds, 12 private. It was named for King Edward, the son of Queen Victoria whose death in 1910 occurred around the time the new hospital was being proposed. 

Construction began in 1913, but was interrupted because of a lack of supplies during the First World War. 

Nearly a century later, KEMH continues to serve the public as the island’s only general hospital, although it has seen many changes over the decades—social, political and structural.  The year 1965 saw a major expansion with the opening of a new wing. More recently, much of the original building was demolished to make way for the construction of another new wing, which opened in 2014.

Source: CARE—100 Years of Hospital Care in Bermuda by J Randolph Williams