Our History supporting people with epilepsy - Epilepsy Queensland

The Kemp family

Epilepsy Queensland was formed through the passion of people living with epielpsy, parents, medical and allied health professionals, educators and others whose motivation was to help.  The original purpose that united them was ‘to enable epileptics to take their place in the community, to enlighten the general public, and increase understanding of problems associated with epilepsy’.

Today we honor this 50 year purpose with our impact statements and hope for individuals, community and organisation.

One of the main drivers was to increase understanding of employers.  This was championed by founder Doris Kemp, whose son Robert had been employed in several jobs but was sacked repeatedly once his employers found out about this epilepsy.  At the time there were no laws to protect people with disability from unfair treatement, and discrimination was a commonplace occurence.  Doris, with support from her husband Arthur, decided to try and change things. A steering committee was formed, plans made, hundreds of letters written, and newspapers and other media contacted.

While times have changed, 30 percent of people living with epilepsy still cannot control their seizures even with the assistance of medication.  Many people with epilepsy and their families and still struggling with the whole of life impact of epilepsy.  Many are still experienceing a lack of community understanding, fear and discrimination – there is much work still do be done.

Following our 50th anniversary in 2019, our organisation embarked on a journey to ensure we remain contempoary, relevant, and able to meet the growing and changing needs of you, our community as we seek to be your beacon of hope.

The important work started by Doris Kemp OAM and her family, and other dedicated volunteers, has continued until this day. We are still working hard to improve the quality of life for people with epilepsy, through a range of information, support, counselling, education, training and community awareness activities.  We still need to raise a significant amount of revenue from the community to keep up our work.

Epilepsy Queensland