James Glover II / Star staff Pat De Lucia, right, sends fellow volunteer Ahley Plough on an errand at Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in Thousand Oaks. As "chair of the day," De Lucia dispatches volunteers throughout the hospital.

Even as she copes with her own health issues, Pat De Lucia can be counted on to show up at Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center, not as a patient but as a volunteer.

The Thousand Oaks resident performs a key role at the Janss Road hospital complex as a dispatcher, or "chair of the day," the backbone of a volunteers corps, said Irene Brennick, the hospital's director of community services.

De Lucia is so resolute, she's even shown up in uniform using a walker, Brennick said.

De Lucia's determination epitomizes the spirit of grit saluted when she and other volunteers were honored Feb. 9 at the hospital's annual recognition event at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley.

Hospital President and Chief Executive Officer Jim Sherman told the audience that volunteers have contributed 2 million hours of service during the hospital's 40-year history. He estimated the value of their services at $16 million.

"I could never afford your services," Sherman told them. "You are way out of my league."

"It's a calling to me," De Lucia, 79, said of her service from noon to 4 p.m. Mondays, when she functions as dispatcher for calls from 60 departments.

Must be knowledgeable

"The chair of the day is the lifeblood of our volunteer organization," Brennick said. She said they have to know the programs and incorporate high-level management skills and courtesy, sometimes under difficult situations.

De Lucia shares the "C-O-D" title with 18 other shift managers during the week.

"Pat is a standout, an unsung hero who gets little credit. She comes in and is always grateful and kind," Brennick said.

Excluding volunteers stationed elsewhere, the shift manager oversees 15 "floaters" whose varied errands range from delivering flowers to picking up and delivering blood specimens. They even push the wheelchair that, according to policy, a newly discharged patient must use to leave the hospital.

De Lucia worked 30 years in university administration, last as economics department secretary for Adelphia University, before retiring.

She and husband, Carl, who was chief financial officer of a Wall Street firm, moved in 1990 from Long Island to Ventura County to be closer to their grandchildren.

After getting bored with sitting around and reading, De Lucia put her name on the Los Robles roster. She was a floater until "my legs and back gave out. Then I asked for a sit-down job."

An unexpected dividend was discovering how complicated the hospital was, she said. That, in turn, reinforced her motivation of having made a commitment.

'You're important to them'

"They need you. You're important to them," she said. "I try to get there through hell or high water."

In recent years, that also meant rising above bad disks in the back, knee surgery and a search to discover the source of symptoms that were finally pinned to a gluten allergy. "Who would guess at my age I'd become allergic to wheat, which I've eaten my entire life," she said.