German emergency services suffer from major inefficiencies and wildly different services across the country, according to a new investigation that has raised serious questions in a country with some of the highest numbers of medical personnel in the world.

The investigation released this week by public broadcaster SWR found that only 24 of Germany’s 283 emergency service* districts said they could reach cardiac arrest cases within eight minutes — the time limit recommended to successfully save someone’s life in urban areas. Some 130 said they could not make this target, while the rest could not offer any data. According to SWR, the…