The Pink Ladies have been familiar faces at Wanganui Hospital for the past 36 years but now they desperately need to boost their numbers, and quickly.
Due to retirements numbers of the volunteers have dropped from 20 to 12 and that's putting added strain on those remaining.
The Pink Ladies were established in 1975, providing regular voluntary help across wards at the hospital.
Their tasks include arranging flowers, reading to patients, writing letters for them, doing personal laundry for out-of-town patients, shopping, playing cards or games and taking patients to the volunteer-operated hospital hairdressing salon each week.
Sylvia Beach, group director and treasurer of the Pink Ladies, said ideally they needed one person on each of the hospital's four wards, five days of the week.
"This requires a minimum of 20 but with our numbers down to 12 we're very pushed at the moment," Mrs Beach said.
"Several volunteers, including myself, are coming in twice a week to make sure we don't let any patients down but, due to our age, we too are keen to retire," she said.
Mrs Beach said one of the most gratifying aspects of their job "is seeing the joy on a patient's face when they've had their hair done".
"We desperately need another hairdresser to help Shirley so we're keen to hear from anyone with those skills and could work with us on Tuesday afternoons," she said.
If you can help, call Sylvia Beach on 344 4403. No training is needed for those wanting to become Pink Ladies. Volunteers would usually expect to work one to two hours a week.