Estimates of the lifetime cost of hospital care for children with AIDS are three times higher than the cost for adults with the disease, in part because hospitals must house "boarder babies" others will not care for. In an article the Journal of the American Medical Association, pediatricians said the total bill fortreating 37 children infected with the AIDS virus at Harlem Hospital Center in New York came to $3.3 million between 1981 and 1986. A recent study of the cost of care for adult AIDS patients estimated their average lifetime hospital bill will come to $27,571, with each patient spending an average of about 35 days in the hospital. Children who received all their care at the Harlem facility averaged more than 139 days in the hospital, with costs averaging $90,347 per child.
