BANGOR (AP) – A federal mediator has been called in again to try to avert a strike by nurses at Eastern Maine Medical Center.

A three-year contract for the hospital’s 870 registered nurses expired at midnight Sept. 30 and union representatives issued a 10-day strike notice over the weekend after repeated failures to reach a new agreement.

The next bargaining session is scheduled for Thursday. Without a breakthrough, nurses are planning a 24-hour walkout on Oct. 17.

Judy Brown, president of the hospital’s nursing union, said she would take a “wait and see” approach to Thursday’s meeting. But the union is not rescinding its strike notice as it did at a similar meeting last week, she said.

Jill McDonald, the hospital’s vice president for communications, said Monday that the hospital is willing to try once more to reach a compromise. “Our goal is resolution,” she said.

Negotiations have bogged down over a union demand for a “professional practice committee” that would be made up entirely of direct-care nurses. Hospital officials want the committee to include managers.

In the event of a strike, patients have no reason to be concerned or to change their plans, McDonald said.

Elective surgeries and other procedures will take place as scheduled, and there are no plans to transfer patients to other facilities, decline admissions or send ambulances to other emergency departments, she said.

Brown plans to confer later this week with officials from the Maine State Nurses Association to work out the logistics of the 24-hour strike.

St. Joseph Hospital is preparing for a possible influx of patients, but officials said Monday they were confident in Eastern Maine Medical Center’s ability to care for patients even if there’s a strike.