Bailey trained in
London as an
orthopaedic nurse and registered
midwife. She qualified as a nurse in 1951, and in the early 1950s worked as a staff nurse, student midwife and nursing sister in the UK and Nigeria. From 1956 to 1958 she was a ward administrator and teaching sister at
General Hospital, Limbe,
Cameroon. From 1958 to 1961 she was operating theatre sister at
General Hospital, Lagos. She was co-ordinating editor of a book series of textbooks on
tropical nursing and
health sciences published by
Macmillan from 1974 onwards, ==Works==