Releasing it under the Official Information Act, board chairman Joe Butterfield distanced the DHB from its former chief executive's report, saying the document did not "reflect the current view of the Southern DHB".
Mr Butterfield added the DHB had embraced the changes recommended by the National Health Board (NHB).
Mr Rousseau, who left the board last month, wrote the report in the wake of the fiercely critical NHB review of Dunedin Hospital in August.
It was with "great disappointment" he read the review, which lacked balance in not recognising the DHB's achievements as well as its problems.
"I do not believe that the review team have adequately considered the very real consequences of being in a cost-cutting mode for more than a decade."
Deficits from 2000-01 to June 2011 were $99 million; $58 million had been provided to prop up the DHB, leaving a $41 million shortfall.
"The impact on staff morale and management's ability to meet the needs of the staff and the community they serve has been significant and the never-ending nature of it soul-destroying."
Wellington officials were repeatedly warned.
"This sustained inability to reinvest in buildings and clinical equipment has been flagged as a major difficulty in board papers made available to the ministry, and in numerous communications and annual plans.
"The NHB report highlights these as management and governance failures but does not appear to consider the very extended timeframe that it has taken for approval of its capital injection as relevant.
"Nor does it acknowledge that the capital programme approved by the [Health] minister [Tony Ryall] is less than half the real needs of the run-down infrastructure, and that the board has for some years now been forced to increasingly adopt a policy of only replacing plant that has ceased to operate."
Earlier this year, the board said it was substantially curtailing its $150 million Dunedin hospitals upgrade to about $85 million to save money.
Mr Rousseau criticised "funding inequity" in three key service areas: elective surgery, mental health and rural services.
"It is readily acknowledged that deficit funding could be construed as recognition of this [funding] drag, but that ignores the psychological damage that constantly being in deficit creates.
"Failure to address the funding inequities is particularly frustrating given that they are substantial, have been known about for many years and have been acknowledged by the NHB."
He took issue with "factual inaccuracies" and said many hours could be spent "rebutting the unsubstantiated statements in the [NHB] report".
However, it was time to move on.
"Whilst setting the record straight may well be important to some Dunedin Hospital leaders, and I have felt it necessary on their behalf to give some indication of these concerns, it is far more productive to focus leaders' energies on working up the key NHB report recommendations ... that will benefit the Southern DHB, Dunedin Hospital and the patients we serve."
