PAWTUCKET -- As a 7 a.m. Saturday strike deadline approaches, Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island and its unionized nurses were meeting this evening with a federal mediator in an effort to reach an agreement that would avert a walkout.

Union representative Christopher Callaci was not hopeful this afternoon. "But look, it's members who are going to make that decision, certainly not me," said Callaci, who is the field representative for United Nurses & Allied Professionals, Local 5082.

Throughout the day tomorrow, union members will be voting on the final decision as to whether they'll walk off the job early Saturday morning, Callaci said. He expects to make an announcement about the vote late tomorrow night, he said.

Hospital officials are in the final stages of reducing the number of patients at Memorial in anticipation of a strike, according to a statement released today by physician-in-chief Dr. Andrew Artenstein.

Despite two federal mediation sessions that have taken place since the union issued a 10-day strike notice, negotiators for the hospital and nurses remain far apart on several key issues, including mandatory overtime.

At a rally outside the hospital yesterday afternoon, speaker after speaker denounced the hospital for requiring its nurses to work overtime, charging that the practice endangers patients by placing them in the care of stressed-out employees.

In an interview before the rally, however, hospital President Francis R. Dietz suggested that the union's complaints about mandatory overtime are exaggerated.

During the first six months of the year, the amount of mandatory overtime worked by 169 of the 284 nurses employed by Memorial Hospital was zero, Dietz said.

Just 45 nurses worked mandatory overtime more than once, he said.

Callaci accused Dietz of minimizing the problem. During July, he said, mandatory overtime was assigned to nurses in the hospital emergency room 20 times.

The union has asked the hospital to blunt the impact of mandatory overtime by assigning only fresh workers to mandatory overtime shifts and paying them time and a half.

The hospital has rejected that demand, countering with an offer to place workers who volunteer to work overtime at the bottom of the list that supervisors consult when mandatory overtime is assigned.

Other unresolved issues include wages, the hefty deductibles charged workers who seek health care outside the hospital's approved provider network, funeral leave and health-insurance coverage for domestic partners.

Dietz said he doesn't believe that any of the issues is important enough to justify a walkout. Nevertheless, the union has scheduled tomorrow's vote on whether to strike.

Members will vote after they're informed of any progress made at the final mediation session, which was scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. today at the Comfort Inn.

Meanwhile, Memorial Hospital is preparing for a strike by reducing the number of patients in its medical and surgical units and its intensive care unit.

As of yesterday morning, there were 47 patients in medical and surgical beds, and 4 or 5 patients in the intensive care unit. "We're almost at the level we need to be at for a long-term strike," Dietz said.

Dietz said the goal is to shrink the number of patients so that the few who remain in the hospital will receive "quality care" from the nurse managers and doctors who remain on duty if unionized workers strike.

About 400 unionized employees could go out on strike unless a last-minute settlement is reached, as it was during contract talks between Memorial Hospital and the union in 1999.

Besides nurses, the union represents technologists, social workers, physical and occupational therapists and pharmacists. Callaci said union members have been displaying a high level of militancy, wearing buttons demanding respect from the hospital despite orders by their supervisors to remove them.

During yesterday's rally, representatives of three unions, including District 1199, the AFL-CIO and the Massachusetts Nurses Association, voiced solidarity with the nurses, and two legislators promised to reintroduce legislation restricting mandatory overtime at hospitals all over the state.

The House version of the legislation, sponsored by Rep. Raymond E. Gallison Jr., D-Bristol, passed unanimously during the last legislative session, Gallison said. A Senate version was never voted on, Sen. John J. Tassoni Jr., D-Smithfield, said, because the Senate leadership concluded it had arrived from the House too late in the session to be reviewed.

jcastell@projo.com / (401) 277-7371

-- With reports from projo.com staff writers Kate Bramson and Steve Peoples