You're picked up anywhere in Southern California, treated in a private suite inside Hospital Angeles, Tijuana, and never once left on your own. A Celva driver crosses the border with you both ways, your patient coordinator is on the phone, and most patients are home the same day. Your logistics for the day: get in the car.
About 2 hours at the hospital for an IV-only day, about 4 hours for a joint or spine day. You've spent longer at the DMV. Most patients are home the same day. Treatment may be morning or afternoon: the times below are an example day.
09:00 Pickup
Anywhere in Southern California: your home, a hotel, the SAN curb, even LAX.
09:20 Border
The hospital is 25 to 30 minutes from San Diego. There's typically no stop on the way down.
09:30 Hospital
5 to 10 minutes from the border. On-site staff meet you at the entrance on Paseo de los Héroes for a short check-in: registration, vitals, consent and a briefing.
09:45 Suite
A nurse places the line. Labs are drawn only when the physician team asks for them. Imaging, if your case needs it, is done on site and read in-house the same day.
10:00 Treatment
An IV infusion runs about 45 minutes. A joint or spinal injection is done in the procedure room under imaging, and adds 15 to 30 minutes. Either way your dose was cleared before you arrived, and a physician is on the floor throughout.
11:00
A physician keeps watch. There's coffee and food from the café, the on-site coordinator goes through aftercare, and the driver pulls up when you're cleared.
Discharge
The attending physician signs your discharge. You leave knowing who to call: your patient coordinator or your aftercare specialist.
Return
You stay in the black SUV. The medical lane keeps the crossing quick. Try not to wave at the general lane.
San Diego
Follow-up calls at 1 week, then at 1, 3 and 6 months, then once a year. Your patient coordinator or aftercare specialist calls, by phone or video, and a physician joins when needed.
You never get out of the car at the border. That pedestrian line you've seen in photographs belongs to other people's days. Your driver crosses with you both ways, and it's about 20 miles from San Diego to the hospital doors, most of it on the U.S. side.
About 20 miles from San Diego, door to door. You've had longer commutes.
Your suite is inside Hospital Angeles Tijuana, a 116-bed hospital that is part of the Angeles Health network. The ICU, emergency and imaging are in the same building, staffed around the clock. Most cell therapy in Mexico is delivered from standalone clinics. This is a hospital. Nobody will hand you cucumber water.
| If it were ever needed | Typical MX cell-therapy clinic | Celva · Hospital Angeles |
|---|---|---|
| Urgent care during treatment | 911 call, city ambulance, unknown ER | The hospital's own code team; ICU and emergency in the same building |
| Imaging that needs a same-day read | Outside imaging center, 24 – 72h turnaround | Radiologist reads in-house, same-day report |
| A question once you're home | Message the doctor's WhatsApp, hope for a reply | Your patient coordinator or your aftercare specialist, by phone |
| Sedation for a procedure | Rarely available on site | Board-certified anesthesiology in-house, 24/7 |
The suite is yours from arrival to discharge. Some treatments also use the procedure room, where the work is done under live imaging.
A recliner, not a hospital bed. Whoever came with you takes the chair beside it. (The recliner isn't up for negotiation. It's yours.) The infusion runs here, and the rest after, until a physician authorizes discharge. Oxygen and suction sit behind you, for a day that won't need them. One of eight suites.
Walked down for that part of the day, and walked back. The needle goes in under live imaging, a GE LOGIQ ultrasound or the C-arm's fluoroscopy, not guessed from the surface. The treating physician stays from first stick to last.
One job each. Your patient coordinator is still on your phone after you go home. The bars follow the example day above.
Concierge, patient processing & after care
They line up your appointments, hotel and driver before you arrive, then keep your follow-ups on the calendar. If the day feels effortless, that's them. Most of their work is done before you land.
On the phone through the day, and after you go home
Transport
Same driver both legs of the day. Car seats four, bottled water, phone charger. Knows the lanes.
Meets you at pickup
On-site support, patient coordinator
She meets you at the entrance and stays all day. What goes wrong in a foreign hospital is usually not knowing where to go, who to ask, or what a form says. She handles all of it.
Meets you on arrival
Medical Director
Heads the physician team. Reviews your case, designs your protocol, leads the procedures. He or someone he trained is in the building for yours.
Meets you in the suite, before treatment
Imaging
Interventional radiologist. He goes through your imaging with you, then guides the ultrasound or fluoroscopy. He also reads the literature, so the team doesn't drift into overclaiming.
Reviews your imaging with you
Sedation
Anesthesiology and safety. For targeted injections she runs your twilight sedation, if you choose it; during IV infusions she watches your vitals throughout. She trained directly under Dr. Amescua.
Meets you in the suite
Nursing
Takes your vitals, places the IV, stays on the floor for the full infusion and the observation window that follows it.
With you through the infusion
Nursing
Posted at the treatment-floor desk through your visit. When any part of your care needs an extra set of hands, she's already there.
On the floor all day
Cell processing
They prepare your dose on the morning of treatment and run the checks that clear it. Then they carry it into your suite themselves. Hand-delivered, in the most literal sense.
From the lab to your suite, on the treatment morning
All of it in one place, so you can close the tabs and go to bed. If your question isn't here, ask your coordinator. They keep a living list and will add it.
Composed from the first six questions every patient asks on an intake call. If your real question is "should I even be doing this," start with who this isn’t for or the evaluation page.
Fair question. Everyone asks it, usually in a lower voice. Zona Urbana Río, where Hospital Angeles sits, feels like San Diego's Mission Valley. Your day is a lobby, a lane, a hospital floor, and a lane home. You're never on the street on your own.
We've run this route every week since 2009. If we thought it was unsafe we'd say so. When advisories shift, we cancel the day and rebook you.
A crash cart on the floor, the ICU and the ER in the same building, an anesthesiologist in the building 24/7. Reactions to allogeneic MSC infusions are rare, and most resolve with a pause and an antihistamine. Anything more is handled by the hospital you are standing in.
Dose and regulation. Most MSC products legal to market in the U.S. hold a few hundred thousand cells, largely unproven at that concentration. Infusions here are weight-adjusted, consistent with the major published trials. Celva coordinates care performed by the physician team at Hospital Angeles, which is regulated by COFEPRIS. The U.S. has no approved pathway for most of these protocols, so "easier" there is not the same as "legal."
Some do, some don't. The physician team will speak with your doctor on request. A minority stay unconvinced. That's their right.
One or two companions in the suite for the full day; additional family wait in the guest lounge. A companion is welcome, never required. Bring the translator anyway if they're good company, but they'll have nothing to do: every clinical staff member on the floor is bilingual.
A medical-necessity change carries no penalty. Your coordinator rebooks the hospital day and the lab slot. Tell us early if you can: the dose is ordered and the lab scheduled in the final days before treatment.
Every family has a planner. This is for them. Everything on this page, cut down to what you use on the day: what to bring, the pickup and the border crossing, the day's sequence, and the first 48 hours after.
Open the journey guide 7 pages. Save it as a PDF from the page.A patient coordinator collects your details and passes them to Celva's medical team for independent review. No day is scheduled until that review is done and you've decided to go ahead.
These therapies are not FDA-approved. Treatments are performed in Mexico by licensed physicians in a hospital setting. Individual results may vary. Not medical advice.