Now, posthumously, the woman known affectionately as Detta is being honoured with nursing’s highest international accolade, the prestigious Florence Nightingale Award.

On Friday, in Canberra, members of Detta’s family will be presented with the award by Governor-General David Hurley at a special ceremony at Government House.

Detta lost her battle with leukemia in 2017, having been diagnosed in 2015 during a mission in Tripoli in Lebanon.

The award is a tribute to an extraordinary humanitarian career which began with her schooling in Toowoomba and nursing training at Toowoomba Hospital.

Between 2000 and 2015, Detta worked in some of the world’s most dangerous and volatile places, showing extraordinary bravery, compassion, devotion and selflessness. Her missions with the Red Cross took her to Afghanistan, Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya, Nigeria and Lebanon.

Bernadette Gleeson (left) in the field in Libya during a deployment in 2011. (Image: Supplied).

Australian Red Cross International Humanitarian Program chief, Adrian Prouse, said the Florence Nightingale award was the highest international distinction recognising outstanding contributions to the nursing profession.

“Detta was an incredible woman. She was a true humanitarian of exceptional courage and compassion who remains deeply missed,” Prouse said.

“Detta worked in some of the most insecure environments in the world often at times when people were experiencing their greatest need.”

The award nomination form tells of Detta’s devotion to caring for the victims of conflict.

“She had enormous patience, resilience and compassion as well as a sense of humour, an acutely developed sense of cultural sensitivity and an ability to think on the run while co-ordinating multiple activities simultaneously,” the nomination says.

She was firm and uncompromising when liaising with difficult interlocutors and never lost sight of respecting cultural and religious perspectives.

“In Detta’s final days of life, she was asked about the many challenges she had faced and the moments that she was most proud of. Detta, undeservedly defeated by Acute Myeloid Leukemia, still so very resilient to the insidious effects of a bone marrow transplant, spoke compassionately of the women of many war-torn situations, particularly those in Ethiopia and Afghanistan,” the nomination said.

Detta Gleson working in Sudan in the late 2000s. (Pic: Supplied)

A bequest from her estate has been given to the Afghan Australian Development Organisation, which has helped deliver science training to 350 teachers, more than half of them women.

Detta’s brother Pat Gleeson says he is honoured to be receiving the award on behalf of the family. He says that if she was alive, Detta would be cackling with laughter at the honour and would be thinking all the fuss about her was ridiculous.

“She was a very no frills, no fuss, let’s just get on with the job kind of person,” Gleeson recalls. “She would be proud about it but she would think there are others far more deserving of this than me.”

Gleeson said the award was a true testament to his sister’s selfless life.

“She spent 20 years in every place that I would never wish to visit in my life.”

Gleeson said Detta never talked much about her job and about the truly awful aspects of what she saw. He heard more of this during the eulogies at her funeral than she said to the family.

One story he does remember is the time she was working on a man with a knife in his chest. The attacker barged into the hospital, wanting his knife back. Detta pushed him out the door.

Gleeson says the one thing that Detta struggled with was the disparity between lifestyle and privilege in Australia when compared with the countries where she worked.

Detta went to school in Crows Nest and Toowoomba and did her initial nursing training in Toowoomba followed by stints in Tasmania, Byron Bay, London and Brisbane.

She spent the years from 1983-2000 in Melbourne before embarking on the Red Cross route, with a first mission in Afghanistan, followed by further missions in 2003 and 2004.

Of her time in the troubled nation, the award nomination said: “Many ICRC colleagues refer to Detta as an exemplary humanitarian role model, who embodied the true understanding of the value of teamwork and a collegial work environment. Detta has been described as a compassionate, loyal, inspiring, hardworking and an experienced and dedicated nurse who had a wonderful sense of humour. Particularly, Detta respected and valued the national staff and afforded them profound respect, regardless of their social standing.”

In Juba city, in South Sudan, Detta spend six hours hiding under an operating theatre table with staff during a six hour bombardment of the city.

In 2011 she was deployed to Libya during the fall of the Ghaddafi regime and on one occasion, with a badly sprained ankle, sailed on a Red Cross ship to help deliver vital medical supplies to the isolated city of Sirte.

Australian Red Cross CEO Kim Pfitzner said Detta had used her skills in nursing, leadership and coordination to improve the lives of patients, colleagues and communities.