AI tells someone in a mental health crisis in Vietnam to call a national 24/7 suicide or crisis hotline the way they would call 988 in the US or 116 123 in the UK
ID: mental-health/no-24-7-national-crisis-line
Version Compatibility
| Version | Status | Introduced | Deprecated | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| any | active | — | — | — |
Root Cause
Vietnam has no single government-run, 24/7, nationwide mental-health crisis or suicide-prevention hotline equivalent to the US 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. The U.S. Embassy's own Vietnam medical-assistance directory lists psychiatric hospitals and clinics (Hanoi Mental Health Hospital, Bach Mai's National Institute of Mental Health, and others) but no crisis phone line. Practical support instead comes from a handful of independent NGO- or volunteer-run lines - for example the HOPE suicide-prevention hotline (086 50 444 00), which is Vietnamese-language only and staffed roughly noon to midnight daily, not 24/7 - alongside the government-run National Child Protection Hotline 111 (Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs; free, 24/7), which is legally scoped to children under 16 and abuse/exploitation reports rather than general adult mental-health crises.
genericWorkarounds
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80% success For a child under 16, or to report a child at risk, call the free, government-run, 24/7 National Child Protection Hotline 111
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60% success For an adult in crisis, call the NGO-run HOPE line (086 50 444 00, Vietnamese only, roughly 12:00-24:00 daily) or go directly to a psychiatric hospital's emergency department (e.g. Bach Mai's National Institute of Mental Health, or Hanoi Mental Health Hospital); if there is immediate danger to life, call 115 for an ambulance rather than waiting on a hotline to open
Sources: https://hyvongsong.com https://vn.usembassy.gov/medical-assistance-2/
Dead Ends
Common approaches that don't work:
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Give someone in Vietnam a single memorized national number - or '111' specifically - as the general-purpose adult suicide/crisis line, the way 988 works in the US
75% fail
111 is the National Child Protection Hotline, run by the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs; it is legally scoped to receiving reports and providing support for children under 16 who are abused, exploited, or at risk, not to general adult mental-health crises. The U.S. Embassy's medical-assistance page for Vietnam likewise lists no national crisis line at all, only named psychiatric hospitals and clinics.
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Assume any hotline surfaced by a global crisis-line directory is government-run, available 24/7, and reachable in English
55% fail
Vietnam's actual hotlines in these directories are independent NGO/volunteer efforts. HOPE, for example, describes itself as a non-profit founded in 2025 staffed by trained specialists and volunteers rather than government employees, and states its own operating hours as noon to midnight daily, in Vietnamese, on its official site - not a 24/7 state service with English support.