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RALEIGH (AP) - The Goldsboro mental hospital ward where a patient died after being ignored for more than 22 hours is closed and staff members involved have been removed from caring for patients directly, officials said Friday.

But Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Dempsey Benton said none of the 16 Cherry Hospital staff members who were supposed to care for 50-year-old Steven Sabock have been fired.

Instead, the staff members have been reassigned to other posts where they don't work with patients, he said. They will receive additional training and could be allowed to return to care positions in 60 days, Benton said.

"If and when they are deemed ready ... they will be returned to direct care, but under a shift supervisor," Benton said.

Sabock died April 29 after choking on medication and being left sitting in a chair for 22 hours and 34 minutes over the course of four work shifts.

Security cameras from the room where Sabock sat captured staff members playing cards and watching television.

Sabock's death has prompted federal officials to threaten to cut off funding.

So far, Benton said hospital officials have given medical staffers involved in Sabock's death up to five-day suspensions, although some have received as little as counseling. One nurse resigned.

Benton said that's "insufficient" but declined to say what he thinks is appropriate.

Debra Dihoff, executive director of the state chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said she was pleased that Benton said he wasn't satisfied with Cherry Hospital or the punishment individuals received. But she questioned why he hadn't intervened.

"It's outrageous to think we have it on video tape, this neglect and a patient's death, and that somebody in charge would get counseling," Dihoff said. "We're all just very troubled by that."

Though he heads the state department in charge of mental health, Benton said he has no power to fire the staff members who neglected Sabock. Benton said he's told the hospital's director, Dr. Jack St. Clair, to re-evaluate the disciplinary action.

Benton said he still has confidence in St. Clair now, more than a month since Cherry Hospital's own internal investigation wrapped up, and said the director has made progress on other fronts in the hospital.

Cherry Hospital has been criticized before for poor patient care and patient deaths, and federal officials have previously threatened to cut off funding to the facility. Benton has pledged to make the state's mental health division more transparent but acknowledged that didn't happen with Sabock's case.

Sabock's death only came to Benton's attention because of a recent federal investigation, he said.

That report, which was released Monday, found Cherry Hospital staff members didn't properly care for Sabock and that some tried to falsify reports about him.

Benton said that he thought falsifying the Sabock documents was a crime but said that the department's lawyers have said there isn't enough evidence to charge the staffers.

The report also faulted the hospital for an incident where a physician punched a patient with developmental disabilities after the teen bit him.

In an effort to provide better care, the ward where Sabock was staying - one of four at the hospital - has been shut down and staff members who weren't involved in Sabock's care have been reassigned to other parts of the facility, Benton said.

Closing the ward, normally used to provide less than a week of care, reduced the hospital's total number of beds to 251 from 274, so incoming patients will be sent to different facilities or placed in community care systems. The department also will quit admitting patients over the facility's capacity in an effort to ensure staff members are providing proper care.

Benton acknowledged Friday that closing the ward will put a greater burden on other parts of the state's mental health department which is already stretched thin.

"We will not take additional patients even though the need is obvious," Benton said.