Over the past period of the COVID-19 pandemic, as in the rest of the world, medical workers of Uzbekistan have shown courage and self-sacrifi ce in the fi ght against the dangerous virus. It is thanks to their professionalism, as well as the attention from the government and the state in the development of medicine, that Uzbekistan overcomes diffi culties and losses. At the same time, during the pandemic, weaknesses in the fi eld of social protection of the population were revealed. As First Deputy Minister of Employment and Labor Relations Erkin Mukhitdinov noted, the pandemic revealed: «not only the weaknesses of the labor market, but also revealed gaps in the system of social protection of the population,especially among migrants and informal workers.»Working conditions during a pandemic require a new look at labor relations — a relationship based on an agreement between an employee and an employer on the employee’s personal performance of a labor function (work by position, profession or specialty or a specifi c type of work entrusted to him) for wages, on relations based on an agreement between the employee and the employer on the employee’s personal performance of the labor function (work by position, profession or specialty, or a specifi c type of work entrusted to him) for wages.In recent years, Uzbekistan has been implementing a number of practical measures to develop the health care system. Measures are being taken to create the necessary conditions for more than 70,000 doctors and numerous nurses working in this area and to ensure decent pay for their work. This article offers a fresh look at concepts such as «labor», «personnel or employee», «labor relations», «job or functional responsibilities» and also reveals their meaning in the management system of health care institutions.