While touring Botswana and talking to nurses, health researchers and physicians about the health-care challenges in that beautiful country, I came across the most amazing group of retired nurses. In 2002, these feisty women recognized a gap in local health services and did something about it. Just east of the capital city of Gaborone, in Tlokweng village, they set up a community-based organization called the Botswana Retired Nurses Society (BORNUS). In 2003, they established the Community Relief Day Care Centre to meet the health-care needs of adults with terminal illnesses or HIV/AIDS.

I find it appalling that of your six highlighted nursing leaders (“Nurse to Nurse: A Word from the Wise,” May), five are living or working in Ontario. Kaaren Neufeld is the only one that lives and is employed elsewhere, but in her role as CNA president, she worked in Ontario during her term. Three of the “well-known” nurses were previously unknown to me — perhaps because I don’t live in Ontario.

I would like to commend CNA and the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario for beginning a dialogue about fatigue (Access, May). I am concerned, however, that nursing organizations tend to frame the need to speak out about this issue only within the context of patient safety. These organizations need to speak out for the health and safety of nurses, too.

I want to say how much I agree with the CEO’s remarks in the May issue. I have been nursing for 39 years and have found that our job has become increasingly influenced by politics, often to the detriment of our patients and clients. A clear indication of this trend is the withdrawal of CRNBC from CNA. As a nurse, I have been told repeatedly that my opinion and participation are not wanted or valued — even when my voice would be especially relevant, such as during the development of new programming or the redesign of our workspace. Although I am not politically active, I think that we nurses should advocate for better use of the medical system and be able to speak out about the repeated waste we see.

I was disappointed to see how nurses were depicted on the cover of the May issue. Do these images accurately represent the current nursing workforce? Over the years, the nursing profession has struggled to correct various inaccurate images of nurses in the media, including the antiquated notion that all nurses are female. As a professional organization, CNA should know that the recruitment of men into the profession may be negatively affected by the use of gender stereotypical images, such as those on the May cover.