Diana Thorburn

Diana Thorburn is the chairman of the Bellevue Hospital Board of Management, having been appointed by the Minister of Health and Wellness in November 2020 and reappointed in January 2023. Her primary role is to drive the implementation of the policy directive of deinstitutionalization and separation of the institution into a 100-bed acute-care neuropsychiatric teaching and research hospital, and a transitional adult care facility for the 400 discharged patients currently living at the hospital. During her tenure, Dr. Thorburn has spearheaded a re-use master plan for the 50-acre Windward Road campus and initiated a campus beautification initiative, and has led an effort to improve the hospital’s image in the public mind, towards the broader goal of destigmatisation of mental illness.

Dr. Thorburn is the Director of Research at the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CAPRI), a public policy think tank based at the UWI, Mona. She is a member of the Adoption Board, and a Home School Association class representative at the Immaculate Conception High School. She is also an outgoing member of the Campion College Board, her alma mater, and outgoing secretary of the St. Thomas Aquinas Church Parish Advisory Council. As a non-fiction author, Dr. Thorburn has written one book, a business biography of an iconic Jamaican industrialist and political powerbroker, which was published in 2019. Her current writing project explores the origins of Spanish Town’s status as the murder capital of Jamaica. She shares her love for reading and books on Instagram.