Judy van Dyck recalled her first El Camino Hospital experience.
“I was a patient with a broken leg,” she said, recalling when she arrived at the community-built hospital Sept. 1, 1961. “I didn’t know it was the opening day of the hospital.”
Participating in the grand-opening festivities at the time were women dressed in pink pinafores, who she discovered were members of the El Camino Hospital Auxiliary.
After relocating to the area, van Dyck joined the auxiliary in January 1962 to meet people. She has been volunteering with the organization ever since.
As staff prepare to celebrate the hospital’s 60th anniversary of operations Sept. 1, van Dyck was quick to note the important role the auxiliary has played throughout that history – founded in 1958, it actually predates the opening of the hospital by three years.
The volunteers provide services that go beyond what doctors and nurses can do. They are at patients’ sides at discharge, escorting them in wheelchairs as they leave the hospital. They relay messages from floor to floor. They deliver newspapers and other items at patients’ requests. They knit caps for newborns to take home and blankets for patients’ comfort.
Cheryl Reinking, El Camino’s chief nursing officer, said the auxiliary is “integral to our operations. … They provide warmth and friendliness for people who are so vulnerable.”
It was that warmth and friendliness that lured Reinking to her first job at El Camino 33 years ago. Reinking considers van Dyck a close, personal friend.
Van Dyck, a former nurse, clearly was in her element as she led a Town Crier reporter on a recent tour of the hospital and introduced fellow volunteers.
“Hi Judy,” people said as they passed her by.
She often uses the word “love” when describing her work.
She currently serves as auxiliary president as El Camino struggles to return to some semblance of normalcy amid the pandemic and the threat of the COVID delta variant. Many of the services the auxiliary provides are unavailable due to public health restrictions.
The pandemic has kept volunteers home, but even prior, auxiliary numbers are not what they used to be.
Van Dyck counts 168 current volunteers, but she recalls numbers in the 700 range 15 years ago. When she was auxiliary president back in 1996, there were 1,200 senior volunteers and 200 juniors. In a 2018 Town Crier article, van Dyck noted that younger women who would have volunteered are now working full time, and older women are busy with grandkids. On the other hand, the auxiliary now includes male volunteers.
Still putting in 20 or more hours per week after nearly 59 years onboard, van Dyck has no plans to stop volunteering anytime soon.
“It keeps me off the streets and out of trouble,” she said with a wink.
For more information, visit ech-auxiliary.org.
This story has been updated from the print edition to include comments from an interview with Reinking.
