[COVID-19 emergency management at the Nephrology and Dialysis Unit in Savona, Albenga and Cairo Montenotte]

Our Nephrology and Dialysis Unit includes three Haemodialysis Centres based in Savona, Albenga and Cairo Montenotte. These provide assistance to 150 patients. We have a Peritoneal Dialysis Clinic with 35 patients, two Post-Transplant Clinics with about 120 patients in follow-up in Savona and Albenga, and three Pre-Dialysis Clinics across the three locations. Finally, there is an autonomous hospital ward with 15 beds that has continued its activity, even if at reduced regimes. With this report we intend to share the strategy we used to prevent the spread of the SARS CoV-2 virus among the patients and the staff at our Unit, following the National, Regional and Corporate guidelines published during "Phase 1". We decided that the Haemodialysis Centres needed to remain a safe place. To insure this, medical and nursing staff and patients had to behave conscientiously and collaboratively, and according to the official Hospital guidance. Our main concern was to protect patients who, despite suffering complications and being at high risk because of their age, immunodepression and multiple comorbidities, were forced to leave their house three times a week to be treated with dialysis. The results of this strategy have ensured that, of the 150 patients undergoing haemodialysis, only 3 have been tested positive: no patients in Albenga, 2 in Savona and 1 in Cairo Montenotte, all of them lived and were infected in their nursing homes. Also, there was no positivity among any of the staff members across the three locations. Our results are extremely positive and confirm the validity that prevention and protection procedures had in the earlier stages of the pandemic.