The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health has expanded its dental clinic and has given it a new home above aground, after 30 years in the basement of a building at the CAMH site on Queen Street West:

The clinic has doubled its dental rooms to four.

"It was a dungeon, I called it. It was gloomy and dark and everything else," said Terrence O'Brien, a patient at the clinic.

O'Brien, 60, suffered from drug and alcohol addictions for years. He's lost several teeth and wasn't getting the nutrition he needed. His therapist suggested he try the CAMH dental clinic.

He's been using the clinic ever since and has followed it to its new location on the same site.

The dental chairs face toward the door in the event a patient has a panic attack and needs to escape. (John Grierson/CBC)

"They understand my problems. I get into panic attacks and I have breathing problems laying on my back. It gets hard to breathe so I gotta jump up and they know if I just grab his arm, he stops immediately and pulls everything out of my face," says O'Brien, gesturing toward dentist Paul Zung.

Zung has been working at the clinic for 30 years and is now the senior dentist there.

He helped design the new clinic:

"Most dental clinics have patients facing into the room, and the dentist and the assistant come in and out the door easily," Zung said

"In psych hospitals, we always design it with us facing outside so we know who's coming, but that way the patient also knows that he or she has a straight line for the door if they want to run out."

Zung has been helping to restore the dental health of patients at CAMH for 30 years. (John Grierson/CBC)

'It's a mad house'

When Zung started working at the old two-room clinic 30 years ago it was still called the Queen Street Mental Health Centre. At the time, Zung says the dental clinic served up to 600 patients.

After the centre amalgamated with the Addiction Research Foundation, the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry and the Donwood Institute in 1989, the dental office saw its client base jump to as many as 6,000.

Add four dental residents to the patient load and Zung says it was like working in a busy hospital emergency room.

"When everybody shows up, it's a mad house. Last year, we had five patients on deck, two rooms, somebody was sitting in the lunchroom, somebody was sitting in my office. They were just, put them everywhere," recalled Zung.

"Dentistry is like the archeological record of a person's ups and downs." - Dr. Paul Zung, Senior Dentist, CAMH

"So now that we've expanded, it gives us the capability of giving those four students each a room with a patient, and if we're slightly overbooked, there's a buffer in the number of rooms available."

Zung says you can't underestimate the level of anxiety people with mental health issues and addictions have to overcome to sit in a dentist chair.

Look Better, Feel Better, Chew Better

Many of his patients have the same dental diseases as the general population but the cases are much more severe, Zung says.

"There's a high correlation between the emotional stability of a person and what gets recorded on the teeth in terms of lost surfaces or lost teeth. That's why dentistry is like the archeological record of a person's ups and downs."

He says many patients are on the upswing when they see him, as they prepare to go back to work, and rebuild relationships.

"I group them into, 'Want to feel better, want to look better, want to chew better.'"

O'Brien lost eight teeth through accidents or they rotted. The first thing he planned to eat with his new dentures was a steak. (John Grierson/CBC)

Terrence O'Brien was fitted with a new set of dentures when CBC News was at the clinic.

"I'm starting to work towards helping my body heal itself and that means getting the proper food in me, which comes back to being in a dentist's office. I'm a diabetic Type 1 and I have to have my teeth to chew my food to get the nutrients in my system," he said.

"Now I have a full range of biting whereas back here, I had no teeth."

When asked what he plans to eat first with his new teeth, O'Brien said, "Steak."