Doctors had to use a private jet to rush three children from Haiti to the US for life-saving treatment yesterday after military evacuation flights were grounded by a bureaucratic dispute.

Medics had warned that the children could die, along with scores of other patients, after the US military stopped airlifting patients to Florida, claiming that hospitals were refusing them and that state authorities were arguing over who was responsible for the costs.

Hospital officials denied the allegations, while Charlie Crist, the Governor of Florida, said that he had merely appealed to the federal government to activate a disaster management plan as the state’s healthcare system was “quickly reaching saturation”.

Last night, as the White House promised better co-ordination and that the military airlift would resume within 12 hours, a five-year-old girl who is critically ill with a tetanus infection, a 14-month-old boy with pneumonia and a baby with third-degree burns were being treated at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “These are three children who would have died if they had stayed,” said Luis Ivers, clinical director for the charity Partners in Health, which organised the evacuation.

Hospitals in south Florida have taken in 526 earthquake victims since the disaster on January 12 and plans were in place to fly a further 30 to 50 into the state each day. Hospitals complained that they were often not receiving forewarning of the mass arrivals.

The US military halted flights on Wednesday, asserting that hospitals had been unwilling to take more — an allegation that the White House distanced itself from yesterday.

The confusion prompted an outcry from doctors, who still faced a race against time to save patients last night until the mercy flights resume today.

“We have 100 critically ill patients who will die in the next day or two if we don’t Medevac them,” said Barth Green, 64, a neurosurgeon running a tented field hospital in Port-au-Prince funded by the University of Miami and his own charity, Project Medishare.