The Gauteng health department will spend R26-million to rid the province's hospitals of surgical backlogs, health spokesperson Simon Zwane said yesterday.

He said in a statement a programme to deal with the matter started late last month and 190 operations had been performed.

This followed the postponement of non-emergency operations in some of the hospitals in November last year.

Zwane said the 190 operations had reduced the number of patients on the waiting list for non-emergency surgery by 5,9%.

It was anticipated that the backlog would be reduced by about 20% by the end of March.

Patients on the waiting list require operations for joint replacements, cataracts and heart valve replacement.

Gauteng's public hospitals perform 200 000 operations every year.

More than 720 000 patients were admitted to these hospitals in 2002. – Sapa.