I'm looking for a collocation to use with the word hospital which would mean "going to hospital".
I'm translating a medical academic paper and I need to say "20% of more than 350 million people going to hospitals prefer tertiary referral hospitals.". This is a frequent expression and used extensively in tables as well throughout the text. Since it is an academic paper, going to hospital does not sound right to me.
In Turkish you can say applying to hospitals but my Google search gives job applications for hospital vacancies in English.
PS Please note that your are not referred/rushed/taken or admitted to the hospital, you go there by yourself. That is the meaning I'm aiming for.
Thank you.