State Health Department spends $598K to give away free syringes

A seemingly endless supply of used syringes littering Big Apple parks and subwa𒉰y statඣions is making life hell for New Yorkers — and its all courtesy of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, The Post has learned.

Cuomo’s Health Department has been spending millions of dollars annually to provide the city’s junkies with the needles, which they refuse to throw in Mayor Bill ♏de Blasio’s special disposal bins and instead toss on the ground.

Residents say the hando🍌uts are turning their neighborhoods into dang🌳erous zombielands.

One especially hard-hit area is Manhattan’s Washington Heights, where The Post on Monday exposed a💙 virtual🐎 shooting gallery in the 1 train station at 181st Street and St. Nicholas Avenue.

“You can walk right by them with needles in their arms, i👍n the middle of the day,” fumed resident Melissa Collado, 29.

“It’s just been terrible to se💟e all these people hanging around on drugs. It’s 24/7,” she added. “It’s no good for the neighborhood. I see needles all over the street, in the subway station . . . It’s changing the neighborhood a lot.”

The Health Department gives the nonprofit Washington Heights CORNER Project $598,000 a year to hand out free syringes from a “mobile medical clinic” it parks dir♒ectly across from the subway station every weekday.

The group is one of 14 nonprofits t💧hat are paid a total $5.9million in taxpayer funds annually to distribute syringes suppl🌃ied by the state in a bid to stem the spread of HIV by sharing needles.

This week, The Post saw a junkie shoot up next to the CORNER Project van, then head inside and nod o🌸ut on a cot.

On Tuesday, an addict 𝐆left the van with 15 syringes, even though state law limits such freebies to “10 or less hypodermic needles or syringes.”

Street vendor Mario Cuellar said the van was aꩲttracting druggies to the area.

“They shoot up right h💮ere. They leave the needles right here on the sidewalk, everywhere,” said Cuelඣlar, 48. “It’s very dangerous for the children. School is one block down.”

Council member Ydanis Rodriguez🧜 said the van “must be relocated to a♉nother location.”

“That train station is one where you have five schools in the surrounding neighborhood and a lo🌠t of children use that facility,” Rodriguez said.

The CORNER Project also sent workers to drug-plagued St. Mary’s🐽 Park in the South Bronx Monday to distribute kits with everything addicts need to shoot up, including three syringes, plastic ampules of sterile water, a metal cup to mix up heroin for injection, and bandages. Their workers also picked up some stray needles.

But the park was temporarily devoid of druggies due to a recent NYPD crackdown ordered by de Blasio following a Post🍃 expose about the 20,000-plus syringes tossed there in just six months.

“I have an 11-year-old and he knows a loꦗt about it, and he’s like, ‘Ma, don’t walk there, ‘cause what if you get poked in 🐼your foot,’ ” said Elthia Cruz, 31.

A spokesman said the state He꧟alth🐷 Department was “working with the City to put measures in place to resolve this issue, prevent further littering and ensure communities are safe.”

CORNER Project Executive Director Liz Evans also defle🅺cted bꦛlame.

“We are a tiny group but our organization is attempting to help ꧙co🔴nnect people into services . . . while also informing them how to properly dispose of syringes,” Evans said in an email.

Additional reporting by Rich Calder, Sarah Trefethen, Elizabeth Rosner and Sydney Denmark