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PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. — <\/span>When thousands of New York City nurses walked off the job last month in the city\u2019s largest strike<\/a> of its kind in decades, 9-year-old Logan Coyle was a patient in the cancer unit at NewYork-Presbyterian\u2019s children\u2019s hospital in Manhattan. <\/p>\n Logan was recovering from his latest setback in a two-year battle with advanced liver cancer that has already included chemotherapy and a complex triple transplant of a liver, pancreas and small intestine. <\/p>\n But as the nurses formed their picket outside the hospital, he held up a handmade sign outside his window: \u201cProud of My Primaries.\u201d<\/p>\n Morgan Bieler, one of Logan\u2019s longtime, primary nurses, said the sight was a jolt of encouragement in those early, uncertain hours of the walkout, which, at the outset<\/a>, involved roughly 15,000 nurses across some of the city\u2019s most prestigious hospitals. <\/p>\n \u201cIn that moment, it kind of reinforced like, \u2018This is why we\u2019re doing this\u2019,\u201d she said recently. \u201cIf he can fight for as long as he has and as hard as he has, then we could fight this.\u201d<\/p>\n But nearly a month on, more than 4,000 nurses in the NewYork-Presbyterian system are the last on the picket line in a bitter dispute over salaries, staffing, safety, health care and other contractual issues. <\/p>\n The hospitals have said the union\u2019s demands were exorbitant. They say unionized nurses\u2019 salaries already average $162,000 to $165,000 a year, not including benefits.<\/p>\n The nurses have countered that top hospital executives make millions of dollars a year<\/a>.<\/p>\n Jeff Coyle, Logan\u2019s father, says its \u201cinfuriating\u201d that some of the city’s most vulnerable patients are caught in the middle. <\/p>\n \u201cEvery single day that this drags on is a severe impact to us,” he said. “We are the collateral damage of this strike.\u201d<\/p>\n On Monday, the nurses’ union reached tentative deals<\/a> with two other major systems, Mount Sinai and Montefiore. Those three-year proposals, if approved in membership votes this week, would see unionized nurses at those hospitals return to work by Saturday. <\/p>\n Negotiations at NewYork Presbyterian, though, have progressed slower. The hospital says it has agreed to a proposal from mediators that includes many things the union has sought, including pay raises, preserving nurses\u2019 pensions, maintaining their health benefits and increasing staffing levels. <\/p>\n But the union says the strike remains in effect, and there were no plans for negotiations to resume as of Tuesday.<\/p>\n Coyle believes hospital administrators should have negotiated more aggressively rather than opting to hire thousands of temporary nurses to fill staffing gaps week after week. <\/p>\n \u201cIf we have to be there, each side to these contract negotiators should also be there, working as hard as they can to end this as quickly as they can,\u201d Coyle said.<\/p>\n Spokespersons for NewYork-Presbyterian didn\u2019t immediately comment Tuesday, but the hospital systems through the strike have said they have remained ready to negotiate when called on.<\/p>\n Logan returned home over the weekend after having a tumor removed near his spine. But he said he noticed the difference between his regular nurses and the temporary replacements almost immediately. <\/p>\n Routine things like blood draws and lab tests took longer than normal for the replacement nurses. Gone also were the steady rounds of familiar faces dropping by, oftentimes just for a chat or to read a book.<\/p>\n \u201cI like they come in and color with you so I\u2019m not spending my whole day on the screen in my iPad world,\u201d he said Tuesday in the family\u2019s home in Port Washington, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Manhattan in suburban Long Island. <\/p>\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t want to be back there for another month without them,\u201d Logan added. \u201cI would feel more safer if they were all back.\u201d<\/p>\n Logan’s mom, Rebecca, says she spent more sleepless nights at Logan\u2019s bedside than previous hospital stays because staffing was so inconsistent, with temporary nurses cycling in and out every few days and bringing varying levels of experience.<\/p>\n \u201cI was just constantly up, checking to make sure that something was running appropriately or waiting for a medicine to arrive or waiting fluids to arrive or a blood product,\u201d she said. \u201cI felt like I had to be so vigilant.\u201d<\/p>\n Bieler says she worries daily about her long term patients still at the hospital.<\/p>\n She said bone marrow transplants and chemotherapy treatments have been delayed or canceled entirely for some because of the staffing challenges. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not the only pawns in this, is my point,\u201d Bieler said. \u201cThey\u2019re playing with children\u2019s lives, and I can\u2019t imagine how frustrating that is for our community.\u201d<\/p>\n Spokespersons for NewYork-Presbyterian didn’t immediately comment Tuesday, but the hospital systems have insisted their operations are running smoothly<\/a>, with organ transplants and other complex procedures largely uninterrupted. <\/p>\n As for Logan, Bieler says caring for the upbeat, endlessly positive boy changed her outlook on life. <\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s always the best version of himself, and he faces everything with a smile,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t think I would be the nurse, let alone the person I am today, without him and his family.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Follow Philip Marcelo at https:\/\/x.com\/philmarcelo<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n