Clotilda Adessa Douglas-Yakimchuk ONS CM (née Coward; January 11, 1932 – April 15, 2021) was a Canadian nurse.
[7] Shortly thereafter, Coward and her first husband Benson Douglas moved to Grenada, West Indies, where she served as a Director in a mental health hospital.
[8] This was also where she earned her post graduate midwifery diploma from Colony Hospital in Grenada, West Indies.
[4] By 1967, Coward Douglas moved back to Canada and accepted a position as Staff Nurse at the Sydney City Hospital.
[7] A few years later, she became the first black person to be elected president of the Registered Nurses Association of Nova Scotia.
[9] During this time, Douglas-Yakimchuk also founded the Black Community Development Organization (BCDO) and advocated for Cape Breton University to create a nursing degree program.
In addition to the racial barrier she faced during the presidency election, Clotilda also recalls an incident when one of her patients, believed that she was incapable of caring for her due to the colour of her skin.