Even more on Moseley resignation

N.C. mental health director retiring
By Lynn Bonner - McClatchy Newspapers
1/83/8

Michael Moseley, who presided over North Carolina's mental health system in an era of unrest, announced Friday he is retiring.

Moseley, 55, will leave his $131,430 a year post as director of the mental health division on Feb. 29, but will work another three months in the state Department of Health and Human Services in an unspecified job.

A recent overhaul of the mental health system, which cares for 350,000 people, forced most counties to stop treating patients and left seriously mentally ill people without community care. In the last two years, the state has spent too much on a basic mental health service provided by private companies; reviews determined that thousands of people getting the service didn't need it. And in the last year, investigators found problems at all four of the state's mental hospitals.

Moseley "presided over the devastating failures of mental health reform," said Dr. Harold Carmel. Carmel used to work with Moseley and is now an associate consulting professor of psychiatry at Duke University.

Moseley was out of the office Friday and efforts to reach him failed. "I'm proud of what I've done to move things forward for the people who depend on this system for their care," he said in a prepared statement.

His boss, Dempsey Benton, the health and human services chief, was out of the office and efforts to reach him were unsuccessful.

Moseley's retirement surprised those outside the department with an interest in the state mental health.

"Anytime new leadership comes in, there's always an adjustment, said Rep. Verla Insko, a Chapel Hill Democrat who helps lead a legislative committee on mental health. "I didn't anticipate this."

Moseley, a Kinston native, worked for the state more than 30 years. He was promoted to lead the state Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse Services in March 2004, after the state had begun widespread privatization of community mental health care. Before he took the state job, Moseley had been in charge of the Caswell Center, a residential state institution.

Moseley was picked to lead the division because of his experience at Caswell creating community care for the disabled. His skill building such networks would be invaluable as the new mental health director, said Carmen Hooker Odom, the former secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and his boss at the time. The state had begun a reform effort in 2001 aimed at emphasizing community care over treatment in big institutions.

But in the early years of Moseley's tenure, the system of private providers failed to develop in communities. Meanwhile, local mental health offices run by counties had complied with a mandate to stop treating patients. People seeking short-term care overwhelmed state hospitals.

Even those who criticized Moseley's work at the division, including Carmel, described him as a friendly person who devoted his career to developing services for people with disabilities.

Seth Effron, a spokesman for Gov. Mike Easley, said Friday the governor did not have anything to do with Moseley's retirement announcement.