By Aleksandra Klassen

Council Speaker Christine Quinn said yesterday that St. Vincent’s was “in terrible jeopardy” and urged the the state to save the city’s last remaining Catholic hospital from takeover by a hospital chain that would shut down the emergency room and in-patient services.

“People said that AIG was too big to fail,’” Quinn said, referring to the insurance giant that was saved in the federal bailout last year. “Well, St. Vincent is too important to fail.”

Even with the $6 million no-interest loan that Governor Paterson just authorized for the hospital and the additional $2 million that General Electric recently pitched in, the 152-year-old institution faced possible bankruptcy, health care experts said.

The proposal for restructuring St. Vincent by Continuum Health Partners, a company that already operates five local hospitals, calls for turning the Greenwich Village landmark into an exclusively out-patient facility.

This prospect had local residents, especially the elderly, worried.

People over 65 would account for a large percentage of West Village residents affected by the change. They were among the many people gathered at the Hudson Guild where Quinn’s press conference was held. They view the hospital not only as a pillar of medical care, but also one of empathy, mental and emotional support.

“For the last three decades there has been one constant, one ray of hope – St. Vincent’s,” said Tim Cahill, a 28-year resident whose daily life is structured around his health care. He declined to give his exact age but said he “definitely was eligible for Social Security.”

“All of my doctors are at the clinic,” he said. Cahill goes to the hospital once a week for his blood-work and sometimes up to four times a week to see specialists like the podiatrist and cardiologist. “Everyone is so nice; the service here is like you’re the VP of Blue Cross,” he said.

St. Vincent’s emergency room serves the West Side of Manhattan, from Downtown to Midtown. Heavy traffic and over-crowding at other ER’s are some of the major concerns, because every minute is valuable in critical situations and travelling to W. 59th Street during rush hour might be the difference between life and death, patients said.

“I can barely travel to 14th street,” Cahill said, “it would be catastrophic.”