The first wave of Covid-19, that swept India in early 2020, was a gruelling experience for the medical professionals. The kind of mental pressure they were all going through is very difficult to put in words. It was about saving lives with minimal resources. There was a time where there lacked sufficient of medicine, beds, oxygen and other needy equipment.

The lack of skilled manpower, like paramedical staff, was another issue. During this time it is used medical students who had no practical experience of handling patients."

Majority of the hospitals and health care institutions became overwhelmed with patients, and anxious family members.

"On one hand, we were doing everything within our capacity, or beyond, to fight Covid and save lives, and on the other hand we were accused of neglect by the relatives because they didn't know what was happening inside." A leading practitioner mentioned in an interview.

Staff shortages were a problem when Covid hit India in 2020 meaning some wards had to rely heavily on medical students

Much of the chaos back then can be attributed to lack of resources, according to health care workers. Pre-pandemic, India reported one of the lowest levels of public spending on healthcare in the world.

In 2019, spending on healthcare was equivalent to just 1.5% of India's gross domestic product (GDP). By comparison, China spent 6.7% of its GDP on health in 2019, and in the UK that figure was 10.2%. Since then, the Indian government has ramped-up its spending and there is a target to spend 2.5% of GDP on health by 2025.

Some are hopeful the devastating impact of the pandemic was a turning point for India's entire healthcare system, with a future focus on technology and innovation.

"All aspects of access to healthcare, diagnostics and life-sciences are moving ...to low-cost and high-tech," says Akriti Bajaj, an analyst who focuses on healthcare at Invest India, a government funded company promoting investment.

There are thought to be more than 6,000 start-ups in the Indian healthcare sector, one of those is Dozee. The firm's technology involves using a smart sensor underneath a patient's bedsheet on a hospital bed.

It tracks the micro-vibrations produced by the body when the heart pumps blood and keeps track of a patient's breathing and other movements. These observations are then translated in to data and processed by artificial intelligence-based algorithms which, if anything unusual is detected, can alert nurses and doctors at a central monitoring station.

The company wants to install its technology in more than 1,000 hospitals and 50,000 beds by the end of 2022.