The Hospital Central de Maputo was inaugurated in 1939 and is the country's largest medical facility, with around 1,500 beds. The complex is a remarkable example of late-colonial modernist architecture, conceived as a "hospital-park" by the Portuguese architects Vasco Regaleira, Daniel da Silva and António Cabral — long low ward blocks set in landscaped grounds, with verandas, breezeways and tropical planting designed to keep wards cool before air conditioning.
The hospital is, of course, a working facility and not a tourist destination, but the architecture is worth observing from outside. The grounds occupy a large block of upper Polana and several of the original pavilions are still in use. The buildings appear in the 1960s photo archives of the Mozambican architecture historian Pancho Guedes, who worked extensively in the city and whose own buildings sit elsewhere in Polana.