ABSTRACT
There is a great deal more that people as a society can do to address the morbidity that has afflicted their ability to provide the leadership that they should have been providing for many years prior to the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) epidemic. Physicians and other health workers, generally speaking, have provided services in New York State and in New York City with little regard to whether a patient has AIDS. Some of the voluntary institutions of the City of New York rank at the very top of those institutions that have dedicated significant portions of their medical/surgical beds to care for those who have AIDS. New York State and other states, such as California, Florida, and Texas, that are bearing the brunt so far of the AIDS epidemic are going to look to the federal government increasingly for the kind of leadership and participation that has to be provided.
