Acclaimed surgeon John Knight sought a $1m payout and an apology from politician A FORMER health minister has refused to apologise to a leading Adelaide cardio-thoracic surgeon who won a $4.3 million payout for being wrongly linked to a patient's death. John Hill, who retired to the backbench in January, yesterday said he had never personally attacked former Flinders Medical Centre chief heart surgeon John Knight in a statement to parliament in 2009.