A second beauty clinic worker charged over a breast procedure that allegedly killed the clinic's owner was on a student visa and paid $17 an hour to do simple beauty treatments only, a court has heard.
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Yueqiong Fu, 29, was charged with manslaughter on Thursday, a week after Jean Huang went into cardiac arrest while having fillers injected into her breasts at the Medi Beauty Clinic in the Central Park development in Chippendale.
Ms Fu has no formal medical qualifications in Australia but allegedly worked as a nurse during the fatal procedure on Ms Huang, 35, the manager and co-owner of the newly opened clinic.
Another woman, Chinese tourist Jie Shao, 33, was allegedly asked by Ms Huang to perform the procedure. She has also been charged with manslaughter.
Ms Shao was introduced to the salon owner through a mutual friend and has argued that she has medical qualifications in China.
On Friday, Ms Fu's lawyer Neville Parsons told Burwood Local Court that Ms Huang had asked his client to work as a nurse during the procedure.
He said Ms Fu had recently graduated with a nursing degree from UTS and worked at the clinic since it opened in May but only in standard beauty treatments rather than cosmetic surgery.
She had assisted in inserting canulas in some procedures and "had skills as a nurse", he said.
"She being a nurse, she was trained to do what doctors tell her," Mr Parsons said.
"The deceased told her that the co-accused was a qualified doctor in China, she wanted her to simply just assist the doctor ... She believed she was following directions of a qualified doctor. That may well result in an acquittal."
He said Ms Fu came to Australia three years ago and had also studied nursing in China.
However, prosecutor Sergeant Liam McKibbin said Ms Fu engaged in "highly dangerous medical procedures in an unqualified capacity" and, in the days after Ms Huang's death, she allegedly lied to police about what happened.
It was only after police confronted her with CCTV footage from the salon that she "fessed up".
She has been charged with hindering a police investigation and administering a poison.
Police allege Ms Huang died after she was injected with varying amounts of anaesthetic in the form of tramadol, lidocaine and the restricted substance hyaluronic acid.
Mr Parsons has asked the magistrate to grant Ms Fu bail with conditions that would effectively be home detention.
He proposed that she would live in Burwood with her husband and father-in-law.
But Magistrate Susan Horan denied bail, concluding that Ms Fu had a strong incentive to flee the country.
Ms Huang had previously lived in Melbourne, studying at the University of Melbourne, before opening the clinic in May. She had also studied at the University of New South Wales.
