THE HAGUE, 04/09/00 - Health Minister Els Borst will spend an extra 200 million guilders this year on bringing down waiting lists. Half of this can be used by the hospitals to take on more specialists, and the other half to increase the number of operations.

It will become clear on Princes Day that the Cabinet will make 'an even greater sum' available for 2001 for tackling waiting lists, a spokesman for Borst stated yesterday.

The sum of 200 million is over and above the 1.2 billion guilders in extra investments that the Cabinet announced last month. This also included about 400 million guilders for healthcare.