⭐ PART 8 — The Post-2021 Acceleration What Workers Saw — And Why No One Has Investigated It

⭐ PART 8 — The Post-2021 Acceleration

What Workers Saw — And Why No One Has Investigated It

By Canadian Citizens Journal

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⭐ Something Changed After 2021 — And Every Worker Saw It

Across long-term care homes in Canada, a quiet shift began around 2021.

Workers noticed it first — not because of news reports or policy announcements, but because residents began deteriorating in ways no one had witnessed before.

What changed was not the residents themselves.
What changed was the speed of their decline.

Staff reported sharper, faster deterioration in:
• mobility
• balance
• cognition
• memory
• mood
• stamina
• wound healing
• swallowing and feeding ability
• resistance to minor illnesses

Residents who previously moved independently now needed walkers.
Residents who used walkers needed wheelchairs.
Residents who were stable became fragile.
Residents who were cognitively aware became confused.
Residents who were recovering suddenly declined.

This acceleration was too widespread, too consistent, and too sudden to be dismissed as coincidence — but no national investigation has ever asked why.

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⭐ The Pattern Was the Same Across Canada

It did not matter which facility, province, or ownership model:
• private homes
• corporate chains
• non-profit care homes
• government-funded LTC
• assisted living
• dementia units

Staff everywhere reported the same post-2021 shift:

Residents were declining faster than staff could keep up with.

Even longtime nurses — with 20, 30, 40 years in the field — said they had never seen deterioration happen this quickly.

This is not anecdotal.
It is nationwide testimony.

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⭐ Increased Resident Acuity Collided With the Worst Staffing Crisis in LTC History

Just as residents began declining faster, long-term care staffing collapsed.

Facilities were now dealing with:
• far fewer workers
• far more complex residents
• far less time per resident
• far more medical instability
• far more behaviors and cognitive decline
• more medication changes
• more emergencies
• more falls and fractures
• more preventable infections

In the years before 2021, LTC was already stretched thin.
After 2021, the system entered full-scale crisis mode.

This collision — faster decline + fewer staff — became the engine accelerating residents into palliative status and MAiD eligibility.

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⭐ Workers Were Blamed for Systemic Collapse

Management often responded to this accelerating decline not with more staff or more support, but with:
• discipline
• threats
• pressure
• guilt
• demands to “work faster”
• increased workloads
• mandatory overtime

PSWs and nurses were collapsing under impossible expectations, while residents were collapsing from preventable decline.

When the system could no longer stabilize residents, it turned to palliative care.
When palliative care was overloaded, conversations quietly shifted toward MAiD.

Workers were never told this pipeline existed — but they felt it forming in real time.

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⭐ The Rise of “Unexplained Decline” and “Failure to Thrive”

After 2021, charts across Canada increasingly used vague terms to explain resident deterioration:
• “unexplained weakness”
• “poor intake”
• “failure to thrive”
• “declining mobility”
• “recurrent infections”
• “increasing confusion”
• “sudden cognitive change”

These phrases are not diagnoses.
They are placeholders — used when the root cause is unknown or uninvestigated.

Once these words appear repeatedly in charts, residents begin sliding toward:
• nutritional decline
• dehydration
• increased falls
• reduced mobility
• more infections
• increased pain
• emotional withdrawal

This decline is then labeled irreversible — triggering palliative classification.

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⭐ Families Were Not Told the Whole Truth

Families were told:
• “your mom is slowing down”
• “your dad isn’t bouncing back anymore”
• “age is catching up”
• “the decline is natural”

But inside the facility, workers were saying:

“This is not normal.”
“They were fine a few months ago.”
“This decline is too fast.”
“I’ve never seen this before.”
“Something changed.”

Families received the sanitized version.
Workers lived the real version.

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⭐ Staffing Collapse Forced PSWs Into Medical Roles They Were Never Trained For

As discussed in Part 7, after 2021 many LTC homes:
• had only one nurse per building
• sometimes had no nurse at all
• forced PSWs to administer medications
• used untrained staff to complete med passes
• expected PSWs to assess medical changes
• required them to respond to emergencies alone

This is clinical collapse.
And it directly contributed to faster resident decline.

Medication errors rose.
Delayed treatment rose.
Falls increased.
Infections spread.
Residents became unstable.

Once unstable, they were quickly labeled “palliative.”

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⭐ Workers Noticed the Link — Systems Pretended Not To

Staff whispered about it in hallways, break rooms, or after shifts:

“Everyone is going downhill.”
“This is not normal aging.”
“Why is this happening to all of them at once?”
“Why isn’t anyone investigating this?”

But management refused to acknowledge patterns.
Inspectors didn’t ask questions.
Provincial ministries offered no explanations.

Instead, LTC decline was framed as:
• “the aftermath of the pandemic”
• “coincidental aging”
• “pre-existing conditions”

But workers knew the truth:
The system was witnessing something new — and refusing to speak about it.

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⭐ This Rapid Decline Directly Increased MAiD Eligibility

Here is the quiet reality:

When residents decline faster, they hit MAiD eligibility faster.

Eligibility criteria hinge on:
• suffering
• loss of function
• loss of mobility
• chronic pain
• inability to perform daily tasks
• existential distress
• frailty
• irreversible decline

When decline accelerates — whether from illness, under-care, or systemic collapse — eligibility expands with it.

This is why the post-2021 acceleration matters.

It is not merely medical.

It directly shapes:
• how many people enter palliative care
• how many qualify for MAiD
• how fast they qualify
• how many families believe there is “no hope”
• how many residents lose the will to fight
• how many doctors see MAiD as the “compassionate” option

The faster the decline, the faster the pipeline moves.

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⭐ The Most Important Question: Why Has There Been No Investigation?

Canada launched no national inquiry into:
• sudden cognitive deterioration
• sudden mobility loss
• unusual patterns of decline
• unexplained weakness
• repeated infections
• medication instability
• increased falls
• increased frailty
• post-2021 mortality in LTC

A country that investigates everything —
from food packaging to playground equipment —
refuses to investigate a nationwide collapse in the health of its seniors.

Why?

Because acknowledging the acceleration would force the government to confront:
• LTC under-funding
• staffing collapse
• policy failure
• mismanagement
• corporate neglect
• the MAiD explosion
• and the outcomes of decisions made between 2020–2022

It is easier to stay silent.
And the system has remained silent ever since.

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⭐ The Post-2021 Acceleration Is Not a Theory — It Is Testimony

Workers witnessed it.
Families felt it.
Residents suffered through it.

This chapter is not speculation.
It is lived experience across the entire long-term care sector.

A sector where:
• faster decline
• decreased staffing
• increased complexity
• increased suffering
• increased “palliative” labeling
• increased MAiD referrals

…all rose together, in lockstep.

This is not coincidence.
This is a pattern.

And in Canada, patterns are never accidental.