Embattled mental health agency puts message-crafter in charge
The Mississippi Board of Mental Health, which oversees an embattled agency often accused of perpetuating a powerful dynasty, has hired a longtime agency spokesperson and strategist as its top chief.
Former Mississippi Department of Mental Health Director Diana Mikula, who took the helm of the agency in 2014, announced her retirement last week. The same day, the board chose Wendy Bailey, the agency’s deputy director of administration and former communications director, to replace her.
“I just feel like this is a missed opportunity,” Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven, a registered nurse who sat on the state’s Mental Health Task Force, said in a Wednesday interview with Mississippi Today. “For the board of mental health to not put an interim until we could find somebody who is absolutely the correct person professionally, educationally and has actually touched and treated a mentally ill person. You know, I’m just in shock.”
Bailey will assume responsibility for ushering in reforms ordered by a federal judge within an ongoing U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit over Mississippi’s mental health care delivery system, which the judge said contained “major gaps.”
Read more: https://mississippitoday.org/2020/11/25/embattled-mental-health-agency-puts-message-crafter-in-charge/