Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director Ian Powell declined to say yesterday how it would be conveyed.
Mr Ryall is expected to make a decision soon about a possible merger of the two boards, after the decisions by both boards this month recommending he approve the amalgamation.
Mr Powell said the decision would test the Government's commitment to clinical leadership, something Mr Ryall has consistently promoted during his term as minister.
Allowing the merger to proceed would be clearly against advice of Southland Hospital clinicians, including both senior doctors and nurses, he said.
Mr Powell said he did not accept the argument the new structure would allow for clinical leadership to develop.
A new structure would not change the culture at Southland Hospital.
It would also be easier to introduce regional services and resolve issues if the two provinces were equal partners, as they were now.
Boards' chief executive Brian Rousseau, however, has said that having two employers is holding up regional service development.
Under the new proposal, Otago would have four members and Southland three and Mr Powell said there was a risk that issues involving the smaller part would be neglected.
Southland chairman Paul Menzies said Mr Powell seemed to believe there was a huge schism between senior medical staff and the board.
He considered there was a maturity in the relationship which allowed the parties to accept differences and move on.
He had been impressed by the willingness of senior doctors' representative Dr Charles Luecker, who had addressed the Southland meeting on Thursday, to engage with the board over the issues concerning the doctors.
Mr Menzies said he had not got a feel for how Southlanders were feeling generally about the board decision.
Those he had been in contact with had said "great stuff", but he accepted they might have been telling him what he wanted to hear.
Mr Menzies also indicated he would be prepared to lead any new southern board if called upon to do so by the minister, although "these are not jobs you campaign for". Both he and Otago's chairman Errol Millar have said they would do the job if approached by Mr Ryall.
