For nearly three decades, Dr. Virginia Greco has helped patients at Diaverum’s Copertino Clinic see that a life shaped by dialysis can still be a life filled with possibility. This is her story.
There is an inevitable rhythm to treatment: the journey to the clinic, the hours spent there, the pattern repeating week after week. But with that rhythm comes familiarity. Conversations deepen, faces become friends, and a place of treatment becomes one of trust, comfort and connection. At Copertino, that connection has travelled beyond the clinic walls, through holidays, pilgrimages and experiences shared together. It embodies a belief at the heart of Diaverum’s True care culture; that life-enhancing renal care looks beyond treatment to the person and the life they want to live. For almost three decades, Virginia has put that belief into practice.
In 1998, I was working as a Medical Officer at the Nephrology and Dialysis Division of Vito Fazzi Hospital in Lecce when I was told that a new dialysis centre would be opening in Copertino and that I would become its Medical Director. On 1 March 1999, that journey began, and I have remained at the clinic ever since.
I have always experienced my work as both a mission and a passion. Caring for people living with kidney disease is about much more than providing treatment. It is about helping them feel supported, understood and never alone in facing the challenges that come with dialysis.
Freedom beyond treatment
Throughout my career, I have shared the struggles of younger and older patients, always trying to ease the burden dialysis can place on everyday life. There was a time when it was difficult to imagine a dialysis patient travelling or spending time away from their usual treatment centre. I wanted our patients to know that another experience was possible, and to feel free rather than tied to a dialysis machine.
In 2006, that belief became reality. I organised a holiday in Selinunte, Sicily, for 60 patients, with support from our Castelvetrano centre. Together, we explored Sicily, from Marsala and Agrigento to Erice and Selinunte.
What has stayed with me is not where we went, but how they lived those days. They danced, sang, acted and swam. They embraced every moment. It was a hymn to life.
Twenty years later, that experience still guides me. It shaped the way I lead and continues to influence the way I care for patients today. More journeys have followed: Zoo Safari in Fasano, a pilgrimage to Rome and a visit to the La Cutura botanical garden. Many more experiences have followed over the years, but I still have a particular affection for those early journeys. Even today, we return to the photographs and relive those moments together.
But life beyond treatment is not only about the places we can go. When travel is not possible, we try to bring a little of the world into the clinic too. It means a great deal to me that our patients consider it a second home, a place where they find not only professional care, but affection, understanding and a sense of belonging. Even the flowers on our windowsills matter, offering colour and fragrance to the clinic, a quiet reminder that even in the hours shaped by treatment, there is always space for life to flourish.
For me, these journeys were always about more than travel. They changed the way I understood care and what it could make possible for people living with dialysis.
I began wanting to show my patients what was still possible. In the end, their resilience, joy and extraordinary appetite for life taught me the greater lesson. Caring for them has been one of the greatest privileges of my career.
Professional expertise will always be non-negotiable. But true care is also about seeing the person beyond the treatment, and helping them remain connected to the people, places and experiences that give their life meaning.
That belief has guided me throughout my years at Diaverum. To me, life-enhancing renal care is not only about helping people live longer, but helping them continue to live fully.
