Senior doctors were concerned a recent hospital report, the "Putting the Patient First" strategic plan, labelled care at the hospital as bad, he said.
That might be true in some areas, "but other areas do well and have improved in the past few years".
The report said despite "some heroic efforts in some departments, many of our patients get a very poor service".
Mr Powell said senior medical staff were generally supportive of some strategies outlined in the plan for improving a patient's journey through services at Dunedin and Wakari Hospitals, including looking at patterns of work for staff, improving information between departments and decongesting the main site.
Nor did they mind the issues being widely publicised, considering it overdue.
However, they felt the way the paper was originally reported by the Otago Daily Times created a negative perception among the public and also among junior doctors.
The real message was that the infrastructure was not up to standard and the "blame is not to be laid at the door of the health professionals" working for the board.
Emphasis on balancing the books over the years meant the facilities were way behind what they should be and substantive improvements could not progress without a " big investment", he said.
There was annoyance that the issue of the emergency department and the national six-hour staying time target had not been sorted out by senior management and was overshadowing other issues.
Mr Powell indicated there were also suspicions about the timing of the document and that it could be designed to head off the National Health Board team reviewing the hospital, by pointing to work already being done on areas of concern.
The national board team is expected to deliver its final report on the assessment of systems at Dunedin Hospital today.
Another point raised by the senior doctors was the report's narrow focus on Dunedin.
Some understood why the focus was on Dunedin rather than Southland, but others felt this was not consistent with a combined Otago-Southland board and Southland Hospital was "facing an ED staffing crisis".
Without a master plan for the whole Southern District Health Board there could be a risk of "perpetuating the piecemeal approach to planning that has been a feature of recent times".
Decisions made on the hospital first could adversely affect "bigger-picture planning" later, he said.
