The Holiday Rush

One of the difficult features of medicine is that a good chunk of it is not connected to a regular working schedule. Yes, you could wait to have that sore throat checked until 9:30 am on Monday morning but no one picks when to have a stroke or heart attack. It could be at a convenient time in the middle of the week or it could be the early Sunday morning of a 3 day holiday weekend.
As a result, there really is a differential of care when it comes to how some critical illness are handled in the health care system. Come in with leg swelling and pain on Monday morning and by Monday afternoon you will have had your doppler ultrasound to determine whether or not you have a deep vein thrombosis (blood clot in the leg). Come in on the aforementioned Sunday morning and if you're in a rural area with no weekend ultrasound technologist, you will be anti-coagulated for 2-3 days before you actually find out if you needed to be in the first place.
This also becomes an issue during the holiday break at the end of December. Just like the rest of society, medical professional want to take this time off for a well-earned vacation. Most consultants and family doctors, except for those who get stuck with call, disappear for two weeks or slightly longer. Operating rooms close down except for real can't-wait emergencies. Need a non-urgent referral to a specialist? I tried to arrange one the other day only to discover the specialist in question had turned her answering machine and fax off for the holidays to avoid having to come back to a huge backlog!
And where does this backlog therefore wind up? Well, the emergency room of course. We're open 24/7 after all so for those people who can't wait a week to see their family doctor or who think they have something urgently wrong, they wind up in the ER where they wait, and wait, and wait...
And even once they get seen, the joke is still on them. Unless they need emergent care or surgery, it's either a prolonged admission to hospital until the holiday break ends or a reassuring pat on the back that the lump they found in their breast or testicle will have to wait 2-3 weeks until the appropriate testing can be booked.
It's no way to run the system. Any solutions out there?