Jacque DeBoard

When Jacque DeBoard first met Frank Weber-Lopez in the ICU, he knew very little about himself beyond his name. Homeless and living in South Bend, Frank had numerous health problems, including COPD and congestive heart failure, which led him to seek medical help at Memorial. But due to financial challenges that left him with no way to pay his medical expenses, Jacque, as part of her job as a financial counselor, visited Frank day after day to learn what she could do to help him.

It turned out Frank didn't have identification, and he was unsure if he even had a social security number. But a determined Jacque asked him questions that helped jog his memory, and in the process she built a friendship with someone who needed it most.

After considerable research and phone calls to various agencies, Jacque made a breakthrough in discovering that Frank was born in Texas, and had family in the South Bend area. Because of her tenacious focus to clear the many obstacles that had long blocked Frank from receiving proper medical care earlier in life, Jacque was able to secure him government funding for his ongoing health care needs. And in doing her job, she gained a friend. "Frank is someone who got left in the cracks and I believe if there is a patient need that we can meet, we need to help," says Jacque. "This could have been your brother or mine. There isn't a patient who isn’t worth going the extra mile for."