U.S. suspends Haitian medical flights as Florida hospitals run short of capacity

The U.S. military has temporarily halted medical evacuation flights for Haitians critically injured in this month's earthquake, after Florida officials told the Obama administration that the state's hospitals are becoming too crowded, officials said Saturday.

The decision has alarmed doctors trying to treat the crush of wounded in the devastated country.

Barth Green, who oversees a field hospital in the Haitian capital run by the charity Project Medishare, said some patients could perish if they did not reach foreign medical facilities soon.

We have to resume these flights. Letting them die, that's not America," said Green, who labored Saturday to find private donors to underwrite the cost of alternative flights.

A White House spokesman, Tommy Vietor, said officials are scrambling to find available medical facilities in other states so the military flights can resume.